Iris Bed

I finally finished the iris bed, and I think it is going to look great this spring. The weather was gorgeous on Sunday (high in the mid-60s), and I spent the afternoon in the yard. When I started all this iris moving business, I had no idea how to care for these plants. I had to read about them and got a lot of my questions answered from reading the FAQ at the Iris Forum on GardenWeb.

To get started, I dug up all the iris rhizomes from the shady beds. From this shady bed behind my back porch swing...

And from this shady bed on the north side of the house.

I separated the new fans from the old rhizomes and threw out the old rhizomes . I let the new rhizomes dry for a while in the sun. There were at least 40 fans. Unbelieveable! Look at all of them!

I thought this was an insteresting looking rhizomes . Looks like a lobster to me.

I planted all that I could in the space that I had and there were quite a few leftovers that wouldn't fit in my bed, so I decided to pass them along. Here is the group I plan to give to my mom. I gave six other plants to a friend.

I am so glad to finally have this project behind me! I really should have done this months ago, before it got cold, but I just haven't had the time until now. Unfortunately, the weather is getting colder over the next few days, and that may cause me to lose some blooms in the spring. I hate that, but they weren't blooming well in the shady beds to begin with, so right now I'm not really counting that as a loss. They are in a happy new home, and that's got to be a good thing.

Tomorrow: Photos of the completed iris bed and my new veggie garden!

I'm not sure when I can get to posting the photos. I drove up to Oxford yesterday and left my camera at home! Darn!