Serenity flows in LeeAnn Shearouse's backyard, where everything is part of a celebration of life and tranquility.
"I feel at peace when I'm with my animals and with my plants," she said.
It's clear Shearouse is not your garden variety hybridizer.
"This is a great time of year to trim back any foliage that doesn't look good," she said, trimming a special plant on her property.
It's her way of keeping lifesaving legacies alive.
"This is iris Captain Jeff Bowen. It is a greenish-yellow flower, which holds up well in the sun, and it's a good bloomer," said Shearouse, our News 13 Person of the Week.
It's been 10 years since the Asheville Fire Department captain was killed in the line of duty at the scene of an arson fire.
"This is the Fallen Heroes series of irises that I did out of respect for the fallen police officers and firefighters who have kept us safe and unfortunately lost our lives," she explained.
She recently presented the Bowen iris to his widow, Stacy, and the Captain's mother, Laurel.
Laurel has many priceless mementos of him.
"This was his senior picture," she said, pointing to photos of her only child in the house.
"That's just the very first picture that we went to a photographer to have taken," Laurel says, referring to a baby pic. Little Jeff held both hands up high in the image.
"And he looked like, 'No, I didn't do it,' kind of thing," she said with a laugh.
Now, an iris is a way to remember a life cut far too short.
"When other people remember him, that touches my heart even more," she told News 13. "So when we got contacted about LeeAnn and the flower, I was blown away that someone thought that much about him that she wanted to do that for us."
Shearouse started the Fallen Heroes series when she lived in Florida. Ten percent of proceeds from the series go to families of fallen first responders.
One iris is in memory of Palm Beach County Deputy James Dickinson, who was shot and killed while trying to serve a commitment order in 1989. A second one honors Palm Beach County deputy Kevin Mathews, who died in 1992 after a vehicle collided into him on his motorcycle. Another one is named afterSergeant James "Rocky" Hunt. He was also a Palm Beach County deputy and was fatally shot while trying to stop an ATM robbery
"If people buy these irises, and they see them blooming, they'll remember the people they were named for and the sacrifice that they made," said Shearouse. "So every spring, they'll remember them."
That's a comforting thought to Captain Bowen's mom, who's planted the Bowen perennial outside her home.
"I'm doing my best to take care of it, so I look forward to seeing it bloom," she says.
Irises represent faith, hope, courage, wisdom, and admiration, so the tribute couldn't be more fitting.
"You know it immortalizes them," says Shearouse. "Cause this plant will be around hopefully forever."