Saturday, October 14th, 2006
There won’t be many more days to get my plantings and gardening done this year, so I better finish up fast. Today was the day of the triangle. We have a triangle garden right in front of the house that was just a mess. There were 3 patches of Iris and Mint (well, it smelled minty) that had run wild. Both the Iris and the Mint spread underground, so you really don’t know the extent of their growth until you start pulling. There was also some Hosta. Over the past year, we haphazardly planted a wide variety of about 50 bulbs in this garden. None of them have bloomed yet. As I started pulling out the mint, I started stumbling across these bulbs, that have started rooting quite nicely. I also found many bulbs under the iris. Great bulbs, I’m sure…just strangled, that’s all. I placed all the bulbs in a bucket for use later.
Well, all morning I pulled and pulled and pulled, until the garden was cleaned out.
I moved the Hosta to the front corner and left the pretty little tree where it was. I also planted our new Bartlett Pear tree. This is going to be very cool when we get our new pears. I placed this tree here because it is going to be surrounded by Boxwood, and deer don’t like boxwood. Also, it is right next to our peach tree and is in full sun, like the tree label said to do. I got it for a great deal of only $12. That’s the beauty of buying these types of trees late in the season.
As I mentioned above, I had to wrestle with some iris. There were three areas, and here is one of them…
This should be a real treat for you if you have never seen overgrown iris. This is why iris doesn’t bloom that well after a few years. It strangles itself. I pulled the iris apart and made a trench along the rearmost border. I layed the separated iris in the trench and covered it up.
I then made two trenches on the other two sides and placed all the bulbs I collected in them. I placed the largest bulbs towards the center of the garden and the smaller ones towards the rock walls. This way, I will have good height proportion come Spring.
I am going to pick up a few bags of mulch this week and cover the entire garden with it to protect the bulbs. I am also going to grab about five boxwood shrubs and place them towards the center of the garden, so they surround the pear tree. This should look good…green at the center, tree in the middle with nice color along the edges.
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Posted in Autumn, Gardening, Home Improvement, Landscaping, Trees & Shrubs | 3 Comments »
Saturday, October 7th, 2006
I woke up this morning and looked at my thumb. Strangest thing…it was green. Oh well, I didn’t have much choice but to go outside and do some gardening.
I have had a project on the back burner for a while. The people who owned this house before us decided to plant some Bearded Iris right next to a Peach Tree. This isn’t the best spot for Iris to grow, because it gets mixed in with the grass and gets mowed over a lot (Who me?). So I decided to dig them up for transplant.
I had no idea how deep the bulbs were. Funny thing…I just assumed they were bulbs. I started scratching away the dirt on top of the Iris closest to the Peach Tree. I kept hitting these weird “roots” very close to the surface. I thought they were the Peach Tree roots. Whatever…I went in a grabbed a shovel and started digging all around the Iris patch. Guess what I found?
Up came the weirdest looking root-like beasts. I shook off all the dirt and went inside to do a little research on the internet about what the heck I was looking at. I found this good site that tells all about how to plant Iris. Then I found another good site that focused on how to divide Iris. Apparently, you are supposed to do this every few years so they maintain their beautiful bloom. I pulled all the tangled roots apart and cut where I was supposed to. These “roots” are actually called “rhizomes.” The weirdness of them still makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
After dividing all of the rhizomes, I had about 30 or so individual plants. I really hadn’t thought about where to put them. I decided that a little more green in the front garden would be a nice touch. I have a strange feeling that this front garden is going to be nuts come Spring. These Iris should be kept towards the rear of the garden because they get quite tall.
It’s pretty simple to replant these Iris. Basically, just follow the few rules that can be found here. I dug shallow holes spread evenly throughout the rear of the garden, one at a time. I wrapped the roots around my finger, because some of them are over 18 inches long. Then, I just placed them in the holes, near the surface and covered them up.
Of course, again, I sprayed deer repellant all over them so I wouldn’t witness a family of deer running down the road with my Iris hanging out of their mouths. We’ll see what happens in the Spring!
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