The Willow Glen Resident

Willow Glen Resident file photograph

Farewell to the Flowers: Bill Maryott, pictured here working in his Bird Avenue garden three years ago, created several new strains of the iris through cross-pollination. The garden was bulldozed last week to make way for 12 single-family homes.

End of an era: garden is gone for good

Demolition of iris plot marks end of Bird Avenue legacy

By Maggie Benson

Each spring when the flowers blossomed at Maryott's Iris Garden, an elderly woman would walk up the short path to the plot, find a bench and sit down. She sat quietly, watching the buds as they began to unfold from their soft green sacks.

"She would just sit and enjoy the peace and solitude in the garden," garden manager Marilyn Harlow recalled. "I think a lot of people will miss that peacefulness, that garden setting. It was a complete surprise to many first-time visitors to walk down our brick path 100 feet and be immersed in a piece of country."

Maryott's Iris Garden was bulldozed last week to make way for 12 single-family homes. Owner Bill Maryott said he agreed to sell the acre-plus plot to the Santa Clara Development Company because he saw an opportunity to grow his business. Also, the soil wasn't as fertile as it used to be, he said. "You need to do a crop rotation, and the soil needs to be regenerated," he explained. "It's worn out from 20 years of heavy growing."

This Saturday, Maryott will begin planting nearly 50,000 uprooted bulbs at a five-acre plot in Corralitos. Though his new site won't be open to the public, customers will be able to buy Maryott irises through a color catalog and over the web. "This gives us a chance to expand the business," he commented. "We were limited with the space we had here."

Bill Maryott began planting and growing irises as a hobby in his Bird Avenue garden in 1978, and eventually the craft blossomed into a profession. Through cross-pollination, he's developed nearly 100 new strains of iris; giving each its own moniker. Among his favorites are "Oktoberfest," which features a uniquely colored orange blossom, and "Pure as Gold," which blooms more than once a year, unlike most irises. Such blossoms brought more than 3,000 people to the garden each spring to view and purchase the flowers.

"I'm going to miss the people," Maryott said. "For 20 years, we've had people coming to see us, and they've become our friends."

Maryott's was the only public iris garden in the Bay Area, according to Ward Dabel, former president of the Clara B. Rees Iris Society. "I don't think there's any commercial iris garden now that's open in this area," he said. "I think you have to go to the Central Valley to go to one."

Current president Helen Bliven concurred. "We're going to miss having them there, as are many other people," she said. "There are people who have come to enjoy having the garden. As far as a place where we can all go to enjoy the iris when they're in bloom as a public forum, it no longer exists."

Even more than that, losing Maryott's garden means losing a piece of history.

The plot was originally owned by sisters Clara and Ruth Rees, both avid iris growers. Like Maryott, Clara cross-pollinated the flowers, creating and naming new breeds. Her most famous, "Snow Flurry," changed the face of iris breeding, according to Maryott.

"It is the parent of all the modern irises," he said. "It is the most important bearded iris ever created. That's what makes [the] Bird Avenue [garden] so special; it [created] the foundation of the modern iris."

Developed in the 1937, "Snow Flurry" was one of the world's first ruffled irises. Its progeny are distinguished by a fluffy, large flower with dramatically flaring petals. For 30 years, children of the ground-breaking hybrid were named among the top 100 iris breeds.

Later, the plot was tilled by Bernice Row, also an avid flower-grower, according to Edith Coscarelly, the last living charter member of the Clara B. Rees Iris Society. Coscarelly founded the group with the Rees sisters in 1957 and remembers working the garden at 1069 Bird Ave. with Clara Rees and Bernice Row in the 1950s, before Maryott purchased the land.

Coscarelly said the loss of the garden will be felt the most by those outside the iris community. "Of course the irisarians go all over the place to see iris," she said. "But the general public doesn't do that."

Jennifer Lee, who works at the Santa Clara Development Company, said development of the 12 single-family homes has already begun. The city has already tentatively accepted the project's maps and will likely grant them final approval. Two homes will front on Bird Avenue. The others will line a new street, which developers have proposed naming Iris Gardens Court.

Meanwhile, Harlow and Maryott said they are working on plans to open a viewing garden in San Jose before the year 2000.

"Unfortunately, the entire valley is being taken over by industry and homes and forcing out the orchards and the land as we once knew it," Harlow said. "Really, that is the sad thing. We felt we were not only part of the community, but that we offered people some memories of countrylike settings."

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