Since I adore irises, I’m officially jealous of commentor Mike in Oly:
My husband got on a kick this year and reworked the shade garden into a part shade garden after the neighbors took down a large doug fir. It has filled in beautifully and still has a few spots to add some new plants over the summer. The fountain attracts a parade of birds thru the day to enjoy a drink and a bath.
I am loving this combo of Iris tenax and saxifrage.
This lewisia is in a pot on the patio. I love it bright circus colors in the sunshine. I find their need for perfect drainage works better in a pot topped with gravel as they dislike our clay soil.
A couple of new irises for my collection that I thought looked good together. This is ‘Foaming Seas’ and ‘Spring Festival’ showing off together. Both pre-1960 and considered historics.
This large clump of Iris tectorum, aka the Japanese roof iris, shows off every year. It is such a good grower I have to take chunks off the side each year now to keep it from overrunning its neighbors.
A few more historic iris from my collection. ‘Broceliande’ is an old French variety from 1935. I love the unusual shade of red-brown and all those stripes.
This was not the best year for my bearded irises as 2/3s of the collection were divided and reset last year so aren’t blooming and the rest are overdue for the same so are sparse on the stalks.
‘Far West’ is incredibly rare and remains in only a couple of gardens in the US now. I love its color blend. Thankfully it is doing well for me and I’ll be able to send some to other collectors in the coming years.
Last is an old Siberian iris from 1900 called ‘Snow Queen’. An unusual shape for a Siberian. It is an excellent garden iris putting out loads of blooms and is really beautiful in a large clump.
***********
Thanks (perhaps) to Satby, we bought a ridiculous batch of Schreiners sale irises late last fall. The Spousal Unit’s dwarf varieties got planted into troughs, overwintered in our (not very cool) garage, and bloomed exuberantly this spring. The tall varieties I splurged on ended up crowded into rootpouches, stacked in the side yard against the warmest wall. They all seem to have survived our (unusually warm & snow-free) winter, and some of them have even bloomed in their temporary homes. I’m looking forward to moving them into a reworked front raised bed… as soon as I’ve finished setting up the ladders in the tomato pouches…
What’s going on in your gardens, this week?
sab
I love your Snow Queen siberian iris. Mine are all very purple.
I dug up a bunch last year because rhey were getting so crowded. I put the dug up ones in pots until I could give them away. Three pots never found homes so they sat in my driveway through a midwestern winter. Come Spring they sprouted. I gave one away, planted another, and the other is still waiting for a home.
sab
My pachysandra needs cutting back because it is crawling across the walk. I also need it elsewhere. I need tips on how to root cuttings from the overgrown to transplant elsewhere.
satby
I love irises too, and @Mike in Oly has ones I’ve never seen even in pictures. Lovely peaceful looking garden too. I’ve always had Lewisia struggle and ultimately die on me, even though my soil is sandy, not clay; so now I’m seriously considering doing a pot of it next year.
@AL, the Schreiners suggestion could very well have been mine, I replenished my diminished iris with some nice sale ones last year. My other favorite place to buy iris was destroyed completely in one of the wildfires (last year or 2018?), but customers and friends sent rhizomes to them to start over and they’re slowly getting rebuilt.
satby
@sab: I think it will root in just a glass of water like coleus and other easy to root plants.
sab
@satby: Thanks. I’ll try that.
My step-daughter’s landlady, who evicted step-daughter in order to sell house at top of market, hired some idiots to trim the shrubbery. It was in the lease that we could not trim the shrubbery.
If I , in resentful revenge, had hired a guy to do more damage, I could not have done a better job at damage. Before, a competent gardener could have salvaged it in a couple of years. Now it will all have to be pulled out.
LOL. What an idiot. Now I understand the horrible suburbs with grass and annuals beside the mulch. These guys are clueless on plants and are determined to stay clueless. She just dropped a couple of grand at least from her property value
ETA:Trimming was to improve curside appearance. That is a wasteland now.
OzarkHillbilly
Who doesn’t like irises? Thanx, Mike in Oly.
sab
They trimmed the rhododendron and azalea to look like lollipops. Plants on tall stems. I thought the whole point of trimming those bushes was to keep the stuff at the bottom looking alive and healthy, to have leaves and flowers from the ground up. To keep the undergrowth healthy by trimming back the top stuff that overshaded it.
Anne Laurie
@satby: Oh, I’m sure Schreiners was your suggestion, and the irises we bought were deeply discounted & very healthy. But right now, looking at the work I have to do to show them off properly, I’m not sure I should be thanking you…
(Less lazy / impulsive gardeners: I would absolute recommend Schreiners. And, of course, Satby!)
Geminid
@sab: You could try taking pachysandra tops with 8-10″ of root and transplanting them directly into the new spot. I’ve done this on a small scale, usually when I’ve inadvertently pulled up a plant while weeding. The roots are shallow, and are easily exposed and cut. Ample watering of the new planting helps, of course, as does a little fertilizer like Plantone..
Suburban Mom
@sab: I have had success just sticking it in the ground in the new location in the early fall. It took a year to settle in and start to spread.
Mousebumples
I need to work on weeding, more and more, as my gardens have gotten overgrown the past 2 summers.
We’ve been able to harvest a few strawberries this season, and I can see a few raspberries on the vine, but definitely not ripe yet. Just waiting and waiting – hopefully end of the month? May also get a few blackberries (1 bush only), and maybe blueberries (haven’t gotten any from the plant yet, but we’re in year 3) and cherries (got a tree, and I can remember if it was an actual cherry tree or more for decoration… I’ll have to do some googling).
Rosebush looks great, and my lilies are on the verge of blooming, anyday now
Thanks for the lovely iris photos! Not sure how well they’d do in my clay heavy soil, but great to look at!
Geminid
@sab: Summer is a bad time of the year to prune, especially heavily. Sounds like the landscapers just pulled out the power shears and had at it, which is a fast but crappy method even if it produces an appealing shape, which sounds dubious in this case. And that newly exposed ground at the base of the shrubs will start growing all the weeds that used to be shaded out.
sab
I just ordered some Snow Queen siberian iris. Siberian Iris blooms for two days a year. Then just nice spiky green leaves
They take up space, but absolutely worth those vouple of days.
Geminid
@Geminid: Actually, 8-10″ inches of pachysandra roo is better, and is not hard to get.
sab
@Geminid: Yep. My thoughts exactly.
ETA : We are up against a thousand acre metropark. Weeds are the green stuff you don’t want. The rest are hardy perennials.
Our wild strawberries this year are so luscious they almost look tame.
satby
@Mousebumples: I lost most of the iris I moved here from my previous house because the big pre-existing raised bed garden I put them in gets so out of control with weeds so quickly. Already overgrown again because we flipped from cold to heavy rain to 90° with high humidity in the span of just over 2 weeks. Today starts a stretch of cooler weather, and I’m going to finally finish putting together the last raised bed and moving what iris I can recover, along with the ones I bought last year, to it. And then mulching all around them so I dont have a new weed bed.
Lapassionara
What a lovely garden! Thank you for sending these photos.
germy
I bought a new chromebook last week and it’s plugged in now.
I just left the room for a moment. My cat was at the window.
I returned, and she was walking away from my desk.
I told her “There isn’t a single bite mark on that power cord. Let’s keep it that way; let’s make that our goal.”
I always try to reason with her.
germy
debbie
Beautiful irises! A couple of yards around here have orange and rose-ish irises, and I make a point of walking or driving by as often as I can.
sab
Gentle rain this morning. Amazing and very welcome.
Geminid
@Mousebumples: Lowe’s has a “Clay Breaker” soil conditioner “with gypsum” that costs about $7 a 1.5 cubic foot bag. I bought a bag for my vegetable garden, mainly because gypsum is a good ph-neutral source of plant nutrients calcium and sulfer. I’d like to tell you how well it works, but so far this spring I’ve gardened more for other people than myself, and have not actually used the “Clay Breaker.”
Kristine
Lovely irises. Never used to think about them much, but this year I became a fan.
I’m in maintenance mode here in NE Illinois. The drought continues, so this morning I’ll finish up the weekly watering I started yesterday. Astilbe are starting to bloom, but the ones in full sun are also crisping a bit in the heat. Monarda are forming flowers. The dahlias that I stuck in pots and scattered about are all set to explode. Native hydrangea is full of flowers and the indestructible sem ash spirea are forming their brushes. The comfrey is done. The bonus native columbine—if they all bloom, I will be thrilled.
Was well and truly rousted out of bed a few minutes ago by a woodpecker banging at the back door. I wonder if it’s the red bellied I see—and hear— tapping at the gutters?
I just wish it would rain ?.
Mousebumples
@Geminid: with a toddler around the house, I don’t have tons of gardening time. But I’ll keep that in mind for the future, thanks!
Geminid
@Mousebumples: You’re welcome. Early autumn is the best time to plant perrenials anyway. I tell myself this as I contemplate my unexecuted gardening plans. So far this year I am mostly an aspirational gardener, like I am an aspirational fisherman.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
germy
OzarkHillbilly
Slowly but surely my gardens are coming into shape. Can’t say yet if they’re circles, ovals, rectangles, or triangles. Found a copperhead in one bed I was weeding. Caught it and took it over to the conservation area, sending it off with a “Live long and prosper.” salutation. The new wildflower garden has gone wild, some blooms but mostly greenery, some of which I even recognize. Next year it will look entirely different.
I lost 4 birds one night. Not sure exactly what transpired with the auto door but I suspect I had it closing too late. From the amount of carnage, I first I thought the weasel had returned, but one bird was almost completely consumed, 2 others were substantially fed upon, and the last one appeared to be completely untouched (may have had a heart attack, it happens) all of which is most un-weasellike. (their MO is much bloodier and more murderous) I suspect it was a mama racoon with some youngsters.
Oh well, predation happens. 3 of them were destined for the soup pot this fall anyway. The survivors have already forgotten about the night of the long teeth.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Being an aspirational fisherman is the normal state. It takes a lot of faith to keep throwing that bait out there in the hopes that this cast will be successful. Every now and again, it is, but most times one just aspires to catch a fish.
Gvg
@sab: the easiest way is to put pots underneath runners that are excess. And weight it down with a rock or a wire. It may help to wound the bottom of the stem where it touches ground and dust with rooting powder. Keep pot watered. You don’t cut the runner off the parent plant until it is rooted.
I often take a plastic tray that is used to hold seedling packs, cover the bottom with a few layers of newspaper and then potting mix. That gives you a nice shallow “pot” to lay runner across. If you wound a long runner in several places, you can get multiple starts from one runner.
Wait till you have a nice set of roots, then cut off the runner, scoop out of the pot, and plant it in a new place.
I root so many plants to cheaply multiply what I have, that I made a mist set up years ago. I buy a hose end $50 mist timer from a company called Mr. mister. Run a hose with a drip irrigation spinner head to a shady area. Voila, you can take cuttings and root almost anything. I am into antique roses. I also do hydrangeas, salvias, begonias, coleus and lots of ground cover blue daze. It’s good for seedlings in the heat of summer too. Also good for stashing just bought plants I haven’t had time to plant yet. Hollies are hard to root though.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
MomSense
@sab:
How very Seussical of them.
Mike, your irises are beautiful.
I had planned two days of work in the garden, but my mom ended up being admitted to the hospital yesterday so I’m going to pack some things and go sit with her instead. Visiting hours are reduced, but I’ll spend a few hours with her. Her room had been turned into a COVID room so there is a giant and very noisy large metal contraption that vents directly outside through large circular ductwork. Apparently the hospital was at 120% capacity for months. All the nurses look worn out.
charluckles
I used to live close enough to walk to work. One of the houses I passed each day had a yard completely full of irises. No grass, just hundreds of irises. Several times each year a box would appear on her front lawn. It would be full to the brim with rhizomes all looking to be adopted. One day I brought a box home and started gardening. Now, I am the one who passes along several boxes of rhizomes each year.
Iris is my favorite flower because it is so incredibly easy to share.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m dying here:
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
“He was waiting for his catalog.”
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: And pissed that it hadn’t come yet.
satby
@Geminid: I used a version of that in MI, and it did help. But I needed to mix in some organic stuff too before I saw a big difference in my yard.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
LOL
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: I just aspire to get out on a river bank and not catch fish, or maybe even catch one. I may “git ‘er done” this month, though. I live only 15 miles from Elkton and the South Fork of the Shenandoah, and that’s some pretty water. There is still an advisory on consuming the fish on account of all the mercury the Waynesboro Dupont plant put out during the last century. But the advisory is to limit consumption to two meals a week, and right now I am on a pace for two meals a decade.
satby
@charluckles: If you have spares this year, Pleasants Valley will probably take them as they continue to rebuild.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
The power cord for my old mac looks like it was lowered into a lion’s cage.
mrmoshpotato
@Kristine:
Yesterday’s storm didn’t visit you?
Gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: seriously, how is the cat supposed to not think the mail slot is a teasing game. Things move, cat pounces, it’s instinct. A mail slot is a poorly thought out design idea. Surprising there aren’t a lot more cats grabbing mail like that, but then mail slots aren’t that common anymore. I wouldn’t have one here, I’d get lizards and maybe snakes in the house.
mrmoshpotato
@Gvg:
Well then. You must already be saving 15% or more on your car insurance.
Wapiti
My brother gave me a bunch of near-white iris rhizomes 2 years back and I planted them in a raised bed just to hold them until I find a better place. They’re doing well, but I haven’t found a permanent home. Last fall he game me a bunch of near-black rhizomes. I put them in the garden shed, in the paper bag, and forgot about them. This spring I find them, desiccated. I planted them anyway in late April and all 6 rhizomes have foliage now. Life will find a way.
Kristine
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s hilarious. Much sharing.
zhena gogolia
@Wapiti:
God, you’re reminding me that “rhizome” is a literary-critical theory term I’m supposed to be trying to understand.
Nope, I’ll just do puzzles.
Kristine
@mrmoshpotato: Nope. Passed to the south. It got cloudy and the temp dipped, and I held out hope. But the expected rain totals on all the weathers apps kept dropping and when I checked the radar, oh well.
My yard is mostly shade/dappled shade, but some of the sunny spots are hurting. I don’t water the lawn, but I do want to keep the shrubs etc in decent shape.
Kay
@sab:
I divide and thin pachysandra like I divide and thin most other perennials- I use a spade and cut it with the soil and roots and replant it as plugs. It’s nice with an edge like a walk because you can cut it along a line. Go back from the walk about 3″ and slice with a spade then divide the long cut into squares. Use the spade to lift up the square plugs you just cut. The only trick is to replant it at the same depth as it was in the original spot- don’t bury the plugs deeper, you could with pachysandra because it’ll survive any treatment but at the same depth it starts regrowing barely skipping a beat.
Benw
Irises! So that’s what those purple and white things around the side of the house are! Woo
So far all the new plants we put in this spring are taking hold except one little shrubby guy, so we’re doing okay. And one tomato plant in the raised bed is already making some tomatoes!
lovely pics!
zhena gogolia
Ooh, can’t wait for this. I hope I feel like going into a theater by then.
Kristine
@zhena gogolia: I’m looking forward to it as well.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense: I hope your mom recovers quickly and that you’re doing ok too. We visited my parents last week for the first time in nearly two years. I was shocked to see how frail my dad had become. Mortality is looming and I’m not liking it at all.
Gin & Tonic
I’m never successful with growing dill. It always shoots straight up and flowers before I know it, and is never a thick bunch of greenery like when you buy a bunch of dill at the greengrocers’. Is it just that it’s a very early-season crop, or is there something else going on?
Geminid
@Wapiti: Colonial New Englanders called iris “flag,” and gathered it for medicinal use. A biographer of Paul Revere recounted how he was briefly detained by a British patrol while on his way back from his famous midnight ride. They asked him what he was doing lurking in the bushes near the road. “Lurking?” Revere protested. “I was looking for flag!” The British rolled their eyes and let the smartass Yankee go.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Try adding more nitrogen (blood meal is good) to the soil as it promotes the growth of more greenery. Don’t know if it will work but it’s worth a shot.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Around here a type of orange day lilies are referred to as “flags”.
oldgold
What’s going on in your gardens, this week?
Nothing. Well, the unattended bracken and brambles are thriving.
i am, however, preparing to make a pilgrimage to Hope & Les’$ Greenhouse to rescue a few hospice bound vegetable plants for my annual Fourth of July planting. An excellent way to avoid June bugs, the drudgery of harvesting and eating peas.
Kay
@sab:
If you just trim the tops and root them you end up with a thick mat of roots and runners which eventually gets woody and produces less foliage. You haven’t really “thinned them”, you’re just making more. Thin them. The original bed will be healthier and you’ll have more plugs than you know what to do with. I sharpen my “dividing spade” so it slices rather than chops but I’m a maniac – brutal :)
WaterGirl
@germy: Oh my god, I held my breath on that one.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I can’t stop laughing.
StringOnAStick
I gave away a rhododendron (and other plants) yesterday that was frying in the full sun location; I suspect the neighbors at one time had a large pine that shaded that part of the yard, plus it was planted on top of a very steeply sloped berm that has been burying the adjacent wooden fence thanks to gravity and sandy soil. The nice young mom I gave them to has offered me some iris when I am ready for them, so I’ve made a gardening friend here in our new home town. She also ID’d 3 of our shrubs as blueberries, only one of which has berries because the others are too shaded, so I will be moving them to the sunny spot. I’ve never lived anywhere that blueberries will survive, and the one bush is loaded with tiny berries.
Yesterday I discovered that there had been a gravel filled dry well under a gutter but it had been covered with years of fine mulch. I dug it out, salvaged the gravel, built a new dry well with a channel to direct water to a desert fernbush shrub that will eventually help block the view of the nutty neighbor’s place when we drive up to the garage. There’s no irrigation there so it had to be a drought tolerant shrub that could stand a small bit of shade from the ponderosa that’s nearby but it will still get at least 6 hours of sun a day in summer and even more in winter when the angle changes.
Now I’m going to go finish the mason bee house I started, and move those blueberries. We are in severe drought so I am scheming how to get rid of about half the grass in the front yard; I can’t stand the water waste here in this desert climate especially since the local water reservoir is at 40% of normal.
Mike in Oly
@sab: My clump of Snow Queen opened it’s first bloom on 05/17 and still has flowers on it. Another few days and they will finish. So almost a month of flowers from this one clump. Granted we’ve had cool wet weather so they are slowed a bit, but I never get just two days of blooms.
MazeDancer
Spectacular irises!
Mike in Oly
Schreiner’s is an excellent source of irises, and one of the largest and oldest growers in the US. For anyone looking to collect old fashioned, historic, irises please check out Blue Bird Iris Haven. My friend Mary has over 3000 varieties of old irises and sends good plants for a nice low price. Also, please consider joining the Historic Iris Preservation Society.
TomatoQueen
@Mike in Oly:
These are lovely. My late mother was fond of a light-coral iris called Beverly Sills, which I don’t see much in the catalogues any more. Some of yours are similar.
Mike in Oly
@TomatoQueen: Sadly, most current commercial gardens are offering the latest and greatest modern varieties, and the old ones slip away from commerce. But Beverly Sills is a classic, and won’t die away unremembered. It won the Dykes Memorial Medal in 1985 so is in every garden of those collecting DM winners. Many, many iris collectors have a DM bed.
dimmsdale
I love Broceliande–your picture transported me back to my childhood, when nearly every neighborhood garden that had iris, HAD Broceliande. I only have a windowsill here, so my iris growing is confined to ONE pot of miniature purple iris, which went great guns for 7-8 years, foliage and flower wise, but the last couple of years have been tough. I tried transplanting them into fresh potting soil, but THAT seemed to be mostly peat moss, with some humus scattered through it. So now what I have is a pot of rhizomes, no foliage, but there’s green in the rhizomes, so presumably some parts of the iris are still alive. sucks, really, because that little pot of miniature iris blooming was one of the things I always looked forward to as winter wound down. Thanks for the pictures, everybody–Iris is one of my favorites.
Madeleine
These beautiful irises make me miss the Missouri Botanical Garden’s iris collection. Thanks so much!
WaterGirl
Garden Envy!!!
Especially love the Siberian iris ‘Snow Queen’ and the Lewisia. I have never heard of either of those before.