Constance Spry and irises
Portrait of Constance Spry painted by Mollie Forestier-Walker in 1952
Mention irises to most florists and they will immediately think of the Dutch iris, grown from bulbs that are usually obtainable throughout the year and are stalwarts of spring flower arrangements. Although in the past few years there seems to be interest in using bearded irises for arrangements and installations, we as a generation of florists did not invent their use.
Constance Spry who created the flower decorations not only for the Queen’s coronation but for her wedding as well as numerous society weddings and occasions, used a variety of irises in her decorations. She was probably better known for her love and knowledge of old roses, the first English rose that David Austin created was named after her. In her day she was, and still is, celebrated for her use of unusual plant material, including kale and fruit, her vases that were made by the Fulham Pottery and for teaching and inspiring those around her.
Constance Spry set up Flower Decorations Ltd, her shop in 1929 at the age of 43. She had been encouraged to do so by Lord Bernstein and the theatre designer, Norman Wilkinson. Wilkinson was in the process of designing the interiors for Atkinson’s, a newly built perfume shop in Bond Street and at a lunch party having listened to Spry’s ideas on flowers and design, knew that she was the decorator he was looking for to create something totally unique in the windows of the store. Constance repaid his faith in her ability and the windows were decked with old man’s beard, copper-coloured leaves and trails of hops that had turned golden. She added a few stems of what she called ‘a rather clumsy heavy’ green orchid and these displays were a fantastic success, so much so that people queued to look at them.
Norman Wilkinson’s illustration of ‘The God of Love’ for Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Romaunt of the Rose published in 1911. There are irises amongst the flowers on the dress.
In spite of her natural flair for flower arranging, Constance Spry considered herself a gardener first and foremost. She wrote ‘I was first, and hope last to be, a gardener; it was an unanticipated combination of circumstances that led me to do professionally something I did once only as a relaxation, but much as I love doing it, I don’t like the groove to be too deep’. Vogue 1933
She wrote numerous books which combined her philosophy on creating flower decorations with the practical side of growing the flowers. Her first book Flower Decoration was published in 1934, followed by Flowers in House and Garden in 1937 and by Garden Notebook in 1940. In each of these books she talks about irises.
She had moved to Kent from Surrey at the end of 1934 to Park Gate Farm. In Flowers in House and Garden (1937) she describes how she has planted her flag or tall bearded iris…
‘I have grown them in long borders edging the squares of a kitchen garden, backed by espalier fruits; and this too was satisfactory, they did not keep too much sun from the fruits, and their neat clean-cut look suited the regularity of the garden. These irises like lime in the soil, a position in full sun and fairly dry conditions. They do not like stable manure. They are among the least troublesome of plants, for they do not require staking or tying, and they increase with great rapidity so that if one plants groups of three plants of a kind one soon has a good clump.’
She describes the iris borders at Swanley Horticultural College where she was teaching..
‘At Swanley Horticultural College wide borders of them flank a broad grass path. In flower they are a fine sight, and even when out of flower the beds are pleasant to look at, for the leaves alone have beauty with their grey bloom and dignity of shape.’
She visited the nearby Orpington Nurseries run at the time by Mr and Mrs Murrell and was particularly taken by ‘Senlac’ an iris bred by Arthur Bliss in 1929, ‘Shot Silk’ bred by the Murrell’s in 1932 and a new iris called ‘Pink Lotus’ bred in Canada by Neel. She was always on the lookout for new plants and flowers, not just for her garden, but also for her flower arrangements.
Taken from the frontispiece of Flower Decoration 1934
But although she obviously admired the bearded irises and certainly when she describes creating a ‘mixed bunch’ inspired by the great Flemish and Dutch painters such as Van Huysum or de Heem, bearded irises would be used…..
‘I cannot emphasize too strongly the need for some flowers of a massive type. Without them the group is not satisfying. The study of a group by Van Huysum or de Heem will make this point better than any words I can find. Large double poppies, cabbage roses, peonies, tulips and iris give body to their groups, and mixed with them are marguerites, honeysuckle, jasmine, larkspur, and spikes of corn’…. Flower Decoration 1934
From Winter and Spring Flowers 1951
Although Constance wrote about bearded irises in her first three books, the iris that she comes back to is Iris Susiana. She describes going to Covent Garden market and on ‘a lucky morning’ she might find ‘flat French bamboo baskets filled with tightly furled buds of this flower. Packed closely like this the buds looked dim and unimportant, but one was really on fire with excitement, knowing how this dramatic ‘mourning iris’ would unfold its great grey-looking flowers to perfect beauty.’….Summer and Autumn Flowers 1951
In Flower Decoration she describes arranging Iris Susiana for Syrie Maugham who allowed Constance to use three old china cabbages with the lids removed as vases. The leaves of the cabbages formed wide low bowls with uneven edges and these were placed on the heavy soft satin cloth. Filled with Magnolia soulangeana nigra and Iris Susiana the architectural beauty of both flowers minus their leaves must have been stunning. The purple outside of the magnolia flowers setting off the petals of the iris which were closely netted with delicate dark purple veins.
From Winter and Spring Flowers
She says there are so many ways of using Iris Susiana;….. ‘with white flowers, for black and white effects, or to give a strong note in green and white groups, with pale pink peonies in mixed group, with palest yellow or arranged by themselves in a setting of grey branches, of ash perhaps, with its fluffly little greenish flowers’…..Flowers in House and Garden 1937
Constance Spry was so enamoured by Iris Susiana and realising by the time she published Winter and Spring Flowers in 1951 that it was a rare beauty and would be unlikely to appear again in Covent Garden Market, she decided to grow some herself in spite of quoting Mr Farrer’s doom ladened words…‘they are a doomed and lonely race of irreconcilable Troades in weeds of silken crape, sullenly and grandly unresigned to exile and captivity, passing out of their captor’s hands in a last defiant blaze of dark and tragic magnificence. They are chief mourners in their own funeral pomps, wistful and sombre and royal in an unearthly beauty of their own, native to the Syrian hills that have seen the birth of gods, but strange and hostile to the cruder, colder lands.’….
She was successful growing this iris and seems to have been captivated by the oncocyclus irises also growing Iris Korolkowi successfully and including it in this beautiful arrangement which is featured in her book Party Flowers published in 1955.
From Party Flowers 1955
She collected old, beautifully illustrated books and had a copy of Thornton’s ‘Temple of Flora’. Not only was she inspired by the picture of tulips in ‘Temple of Flora’ to create this arrangement, wanting people to take in the individual beauty of each of the tulips and the iris, she also used the picture as one of 24 squares she had printed on canvas so that she could embroider them during the Second World War and create a needlepoint carpet. With the help of friends the carpet was completed and put on the floor of her drawing room. It was well trodden and eventually wore out. Fortunately her son Tony Marr saved some of the squares and they now featured in the ‘Constance Spry and the Fashion for Flowers’ exhibition at the Garden Museum.
One surviving square from the carpet that Constance Spry embroidered during the Second World War.
Her later books published between 1951 and 1959 refer much more to the species iris. In Favourite Flowers published in 1959, a year before her death, she refers to Regelio-cyclus iris that she has carefully planted in a well-drained spot in a raised bed built in a double wall. Along with Iris Korolkowi, she has Iris Hoogiana ‘Bronze Beauty’ which was ‘a quiet symphony of violet, purple, blue and bronze’. She also grows Iris douglasiana ‘with flowers like small and delicate clematis of pale lilac marked with yellow and violet, and the ‘Plum Tart’ iris (Iris graminea), pretty in its purple and violet and entirely surprising in its rich smell of hot fruit.’…
Constance admits to failing with Iris innominata, and this is not the only failure she owns up to where irises are concerned. Her very first garden in Ireland was somewhat overgrown….
‘This was my first garden. And my first act and deed, in a spasm of house-proud enthusiasm, was to tear away a great entanglement of weeds just below the drawing-room window, and here I found, to my delight, quite a lot of clumps of iris. The word ‘iris’ in those days meant only one thing to me – the German flag iris – and I had a vision of a sea of pale mauves and purples lying below the windows in May and June. The untidy rushy leaves might have warned me, but I knew too little for them to convey anything. When May came the flowers that bloomed were a dirty brownish-white, dull, inconspicuous, and evil-smelling, and in a fury of disappointment I dug them all up and threw them on the rubbish-heap. The following winter I regretted this rash act. I saw in the house of a friend an old copper jug filled with brown leaves and brilliant orange seed heads. I admired this arrangement very much, and asked how could I grow these delightful seed-heads for winter. ‘But,’ she said, ‘your garden used to be full of them. My plants came from there,’ and after a little questioning I discovered I had thrown away all my gladwin irises, or Iris foetidissima.’..Garden Notebook 1940
Iris foetdissima
Also writing about another iris mishap in Garden Notebook she talks about mixing up the growing conditions of different irises…..
‘I had a nursery border of flag irises and alongside of it a row of Siberian irises. I had also in a rougher part of the garden a shallow, natural pond, the banks of which I hoped to fringe with the Siberian irises. The banks of the pond were duly prepared, and one morning, just before I had to go off to the country to make plans for someone else’s garden, I rushed out and gave instructions about the removal of the Siberian irises. When a week or two later I went to look at the pond I found that my flag irises (bearded iris) had also been planted there. The water of the pond had risen, and the poor, miserable things were half submerged in mud. It was too late to rescue them, and they just had to be allowed to die out.’……
From How to Do the Flowers 1953
Even in the depths of winter Constance would look for flowers and seed heads to arrange. She would grow pots of bulbs for the house and included Iris reticulata in these displays describing them thus…
‘I shall never forget the first time I grew a frame full of these flowers; I had read somewhere a suggestion that a violet frame might be devoted to them, and I tried the experiment. Their colouring of purple and gold, their scent of violets, seemed of peculiar richness and beauty on a cold February day. They are hardy enough to grow freely out of doors, but a frame saves them from being broken by rough weather, and for cutting this is the best way to grow them.’…Flower Decoration 1934
Iris stylosa or unguicularis as we know it today was a staple of winter arrangements. She refers to it a number of times in her books, but this picture and her description sums up her eye for design, of marrying the different elements of the arrangement with the vessel it is placed in and putting the finished article in the right place for it to be admired, but also to enhance its surroundings….
‘On the occasion of the photograph someone out on a country walk brought me in a spray of alder, something of Chinese-etching beauty, bearing together its last year’s dried flowers and the new catkins. The soft brown of the new catkins was softly tinged with plum purple, and this suggested the idea that the branch might form a suitable setting for the irises. It is at such a moment that one appreciates having exactly the right vase. My own particular Father Christmas had, with unerring taste, given me the beautiful urns shown to add to my few bits of bluejohn, and here was a moment to use it; you cannot think, unless you will try such an arrangement, how lovely is this combination of colour of browns, soft plum colours and mauves, nor, I fear, can one hope that any illustration will capture its luminous quality which came from the translucence of the vase and the petals of the irises.’ ….. from Winter and Spring Flowers 1951
From Winter and Spring Flowers 1951
Spry used irises throughout their flowering period and this include Iris Kaempferi or Japanese iris, one of the later flowering iris varieties….
‘One of the best of July’s flowers is the Japanese iris (Iris Kaempferi). It is lovely in bud and when the flat, saucer-shaped flowers are fully expanded they are highly decorative, and one can have them in white and from pale lavender to deep mauve. I like to see them arranged along, and for this purpose I have a plaster vase made like a section of a stem of bamboo. In this vase these Japanese irises, with a few flag leaves from the pond-side, make a very effective group.’…..Garden Notebook 1940
Author’s arrangement of Iris Kaempferi in a piece of bamboo.
From Garden Notebook showing the bamboo vase made from plaster
Constance was very happy to use material that was ephemeral and to her a flower which only lasted a day was still worth using. Her philosophy was that the memory of its beauty will return…….
‘If something is completely beautiful, I am perfectly happy to behold it and then let it go; even though you think you forget it you never do, and often, when your mind appears to be entirely remote from it, a vision will suddenly spring up and you will see it again.’ ..Garden Notebook 1940
Constance Spry met a lot of people through her business not just her customers, but also nurserymen, hybridisers and specialists. She visited Norman Haddon’s garden in Somerset. Haddon was a fellow iris enthusiast who regularly contributed to the British Iris Society yearbook. In Garden Notebook she writes about going to St Nicholas in Richmond, Yorkshire, which belonged to the Hon. Robert James (The rambling rose ‘Bobby James’ was named after him). There she was most taken with his iris border, which was not in flower as it was September, but the combination of the foliage of the bearded irises and the sibiricas greatly impressed her, set against a backdrop of fruit trees, it was a study of greens and greys which had its own beauty.
She was encouraged to take a stand at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1932 and summed up an exhibitor’s view of Chelsea..
‘To gardeners and flower arrangers, Chelsea is a compound of pleasure and pain ….the surfeit of pleasure in so much beauty, the frustration of not being able to afford all the plants one wanted, and the special torment of putting on a stand with sleepless nights spent worrying over the fear of producing something stale or dull’…..The Surprising Life of Constance Spry by Sue Shephard.
She loved Chelsea for the variety of people who attended. In the great marquee were the nurserymen, hybridisers and gardeners who would chat to all the members of the public from royalty, lords and ladies, to those passionate about their own particular plot and to her that was the glory she called ‘freemasonry of flowers’.
Her stand featured large arrangements of flowers, often colour themed such as her favoured white and green combination, which might include lilies, anthuriums and magnolia or one filled with soft pinks and mauves containing lilac, iris, azaleas and fruit blooms.
From How to Do the Flowers 1953
In her book Favourite Flowers she recalls being asked by the BBC to join other experts to comment on the exhibits…
‘On the Sunday preceding the Chelsea show of 1957, Mr Roy Hay with other experts was making a tour of the exhibits and each in turn contributed to a commentary for the BBC. I was invited to join them and to indicate here and there something of special interest from the angle of indoor decoration. Already my eyes had lighted on a group of irises shown by Messrs Kooper of Ferndown, Dorset. Here and there in the giant marquee were kaleidoscopes of glimmering colour from groups of flag irises and others of large stature; huge flowers, fine colours, strong substantial stems, they had an immediate popular appeal. It was not however such as these that I then wanted to proclaim but something of quite different calibre; irises of restrained and shy beauty, of slender grace, bearing flowers of muted tones: bronze tinged with violet, misted purples, cloudy pinks. I remember thinking and saying that if I could possess myself of some of these together with a shell-pink peony or two from a nearby stand and then be allowed to arrange them together, my day would be made.’
Fleur de Lys vase on display at the Garden Museum
Constance Spry found inspiration from so many things. In recent years her famous vases made by the Fulham Pottery have found a new and enthusiastic audience. The exhibition at The Garden Museum in Lambeth features a good number of different vases including this one pictured, inspired by the fleur-de-lys (iris) shape. The guest curator, Shane Connolly, himself a florist for royal weddings and the curator Emma House have used items from the Royal Horticultural Society Constance Spry archive. This photo shows an arrangement using Iris tuberosa or Hermodactylus tuberosus as we know it today. The snake’s head iris features in a number of arrangements in Constance Spry’s books and she suggests that it is a useful and beautiful flower to use in grey and green arrangements…..
‘In March there is the green Iris tuberosa, sometimes called snakeshead. It has velvety black blotches on the petals, and is both curious and beautiful. This is lovely alone, in close masses or arranged formally with white camellias. It is sweet-scented, lasts well, is easy to grow, and cheap to buy: but alas, I know at least one grower in the south who will have to give up growing it and revert to planting the more popular daffodils in its place because there is so little demand for it. I feel convinced that this is because it has not yet been recognized for what it is, a subtly decorative and beautiful subject…….’ Flowers in House and Garden 1937
Photo from the Constance Spry and the Fashion for flowers exhibition at the Garden Museum
Constance Spry found beauty in so many things and so I shall leave the last word to her…..
‘Do what you please, follow your own star; be original if you want to be and don’t if you don’t want to be. Just be natural and light-hearted and pretty and simple and overflowing and general and baroque and bare and austere and stylized and wild and daring and conservative, and learn and learn and learn. Open your mind to every form of beauty’…….
From Simple Flowers: A Millionaire for a Few Pence 1957
Written by Sophie Leathart