Scope and ContentSaugatuck, The Iris Town by Kit Lane With the Tulip Festival under way to the north, and Blossomtime becoming an institution to the south, Saugatuck began casting around for its own flower in 1937 and settled on the iris. The local garden club promoted extensive plantings on public grounds and on the approaches to the village and encouraged homeowners to plant iris in their front yards. That first year it was estimated that 12,000 rhizomes (like a root) were added to the village decor. "All with the laudable purpose of making the town still more attractive," according to the March, 1937 issue of the "Horticultural News." The following year a small Iris Festival was scheduled for celebration in June, 1938. The iris was a natural. It was a favorite project of Eric E. "Ed" Nies who had been born in Saugatuck in 1884, one of 13 children born to John and Johanna (Kruisenga) Nies. Following his discharge from the Union army in 1864 the elder Nies had opened a hardware store in Saugatuck. In 1894 he sold his share in the business to his partner, John Koning, and moved to Holland where he and his sons began a hardware store. Ed Nies worked in the hardware store as a young man but went to Michigan State College where he was an outstanding pitcher for the baseball team and studied botany. He was married in 1908 to Grace Perry of Charlotte and five years later the family moved to California where Ed took additional work in botany and education at the University of Southern California. He became a landscape architect and was known for his use of flower beds, especially the bearded iris. One kind of iris, the Spuria, became his absorbing interest and he developed many new varieties. One of his new plants was known as the "Michigan State" iris after his alma mater, another was named "Saugatuck" after his birthplace. When the Iris Festival was founded, and later in the early 1950's when iris growing in Saugatuck met with a revival, a special effort was made to grow the Saugatuck Iris which had to be ordered from a few western nurseries where they were propagated. The Saugatuck Iris was a fairly large lavender iris with gray overtones. It was first introduced in 1941 by the Milliken Gardens of Arcadia, California and was carried in their catalogs for 25 years. When the California nursery was contacted in 1976 they wrote that the iris named for the village was no longer available, but the Saugatuck, along with the Bronspur, Lark Song, Pastoral, and Michigan State had "by this time been greatly surpassed by its progeny." Later varieties developed in the Nies family of spurias include Color Guard and Cherokee Chief. Mrs. Marion R. Walker of the American Iris Society, wrote, "The American Iris Society has established the Eric Nies Award for the best spuria produced each year in the world. Some of the Nies progeny have won this award." -- KL