World-famous in Whanganui: Author to tell story of iris hybridiser Jean Stevens

Karen Wrigglesworth received grant funding to publish another book. Photo / Paul Brooks

Whanganui author Karen Wrigglesworth’s new project will tell the story of world-famous iris hybridiser Jean Stevens, who she says is less renowned in the River City than around the world.

Wrigglesworth is one of 10 recipients of the Whiria Te Mahara New Zealand History Grants from Manatū Taonga the Ministry of Culture & Heritage who share $108,200.

She said the grant will go towards the publishing of her book Blooming Impossible: A life of ‘Iris Lady’ Jean Stevens.

“I think when you’re a writer often you do a lot of your creative stuff in your own space, it’s not like when you’re creating an artwork, you spend a lot of time hidden away before you get things out in the world,” Wrigglesworth said.

She wanted to tell Stevens’ story because there weren’t many people in Whanganui who knew it, despite her being an internationally famous plant woman and doing most of her work in and around the city.

“If you talk to people in the States, if you talk to people in South Africa they’ll say ‘wow, you mean the Jean Stevens?’”

Stevens was best known for creating new varieties of Iris flower, the most famous of which is the pinnacle iris, a tall bearded iris with petals that are white at the top and yellow at the bottom.

Prior to her work, irises with two-colour petals, called an amoena, were only white and purple.

“It’s like a blue rose, you don’t think it’s possible and so Jean did something with science, with plant breeding that just blew people away because they didn’t think it was possible before,” she said.

Stevens also worked on many other flowers, such as lucadendrons, and won many awards the world over as well as meeting the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother during her visit to Whanganui in 1954.

Much of this work was done from her property on Bastia Hill, which she developed into a nursery after buying it with her husband in the 1940s.

“That was where the Queen Mother visited, that was where she was known for her irises and they had a whole lot of other amazing plants as well.”

Wrigglesworth was also related to Stevens by marriage.

“My uncle married her daughter and I grew up down the road from their garden, so I was always aware of Jean in the background.”

Wrigglesworth is also a member of Blooms on Bastia, a group that last year attempted to stop the selling of the property where Stevens conducted much of her work.

This effort didn’t come to fruition and she believed if more people knew Evans’ story, there may have been more sympathy and interest from the general public around the preservation of the gardens.

“If we had been better at telling the story, people would have known the value of what was there, and because we haven’t been sharing the stories it was a little secret gem but people didn’t understand its value.”

As well as the book, Wrigglesworth said Blooms on Bastia will be planting a memorial garden of pinnacle irises at the Bason Reserve as a memorial to Stevens.

Finn Williams is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in early 2022 and regularly covers stories about business, events and emergencies. He also enjoys writing opinion columns on whatever interests him.