Mary Ann Horton, center, runs the Horton Iris Garden with help from her whole family, including her daughter, Lori Kambe, and her husband, Ed. Her two sons and their wives also pitch in.
Story by Pat Rubin • Photos by Fred Greaves
It’s a short drive from Interstate 80 to the Horton Iris Garden near the small Placer County town of Loomis. Once you exit the freeway, though, the scenery changes quickly and includes more horses than houses. Visitors enter the garden via a country driveway that snakes aroundmassive rock outcroppings and past an old farmhouse before spilling out onto large swaths of lawn framing beds of irises. Between them, they house nearly 1,500 varieties of bearded iris (also called German iris), all reaching their peak of bloom during April and May. The names are fun to read: Crackling Caldera, Foggy Morning, Laced Handkerchief, Riverboat Gambler, Waltz Across Texas. The beds are organized in rows and the irises are clearly labeled. The drill is simple: Order your favorite irises from a Horton family member and then return in August to pick up the rhizomes, which are harvested in July when the plants are dormant. For those who need instant gratification, a small selection of potted irises is available for sale. Jill Morris of Placerville, who has been coming to the garden for about 15 years, brought three friends with her last spring. “My friends had never been and I thought it would be a good day trip,” she said. Her cousin, StaceyVreeken, also fromPlacerville, bought amixof old-fashionedandnewvarieties of irises. “The familymembers were all there to help and tell us about their history,” she said. Property’s past Mary Ann Horton, a retired community college math teacher, and her husband, Ed, opened Horton Iris Garden in 1999. It is open in April and May during bloom and then in mid-August through October for order pickup and bareroot rhizomes purchases. In October, the focus shifts to the cut-your-own pumpkin patch, run by Mary Ann’s son Doug. New additions this year are a Harvest Market with vendors, a cut-your-own flower garden, and digging, dividing and planting demonstrations. The whole Horton family is involved. Ed starts each morning checking the irrigation valves and making sure screens on the water lines are clean. Mary Ann’s daughter, Lori Kambe, handles social media, son Doug concentrates on maintenance, while his wife, Jennifer, and Mary Ann’s youngest son and wife provide extra help on busy weekends.
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