On the QT | The Official Newsletter of GWA February-March 2016 | Page 24

MEMBER PROFILE DEB WILEY PHOTO COURTESY DEB WILEY A mutual passion for plants: Elvin McDonald and Kelly Norris Kelly Norris and Elvin McDonald are kindred spirits when it comes to gardening. Elvin McDonald and Kelly Norris well remember the day they met in May 2004. McDonald, at the time a 67-year-old magazine garden editor and prolific author, was visiting Rainbow Iris Farm in southwest Iowa where Norris and his family grew 7-acres of irises. “I took the afternoon off school,” remembers Norris, who was 17 and a junior in high school. 24 Kindred souls McDonald and Norris often continue the conversation and laughter at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden (GDMBG), where Norris is director of horticulture and McDonald, as emeritus botanical educator and ambassador, volunteers for gardener duties at Norris’ command every Friday morning. “I was so impressed he was the boss, in a very natural way,” says McDonald. Born exactly 50 years and 17 days apart, McDonald and Norris know they share some eerie commonalities. They walked the blooming fields. Norris recalls, “We stopped by a row of white irises and I talked about how I wasn’t particularly a fan of white irises because they always looked like crumpled tissues on the ends of stems. And he said, ‘You know, Penelope Hobhouse felt the same way.’ That put me in good company, right?” At age 14, McDonald founded the American Gloxinia Society, now The Gesneriad Society. At 15, Norris talked his family into buying a Texas iris farm and moving the business to Iowa. McDonald majored in opera. Norris majored in horticulture, but immersed himself in classical music, theater and Broadway musicals. Then Norris and McDonald, recounting the experience nearly 12 years later, start laughing in that joyous way people do when they’re completely understood. They both have the middle initial D and share a penchant for bow ties, books and showmanship. They’re committed to public gardens, but nurture a much wider perspective about the role of horticulture.