I love irises.  They are my favorite flower.  Dwayne doesn’t agree.  He doesn’t understand why I would like something that only has a one day bloom.  Of course, he likes the hibiscus, the poppies and many other flowers that do the same in our garden.  Or at least only bloom for a couple of days.  Doesn’t matter.  I have a lot of them.  Almost all of them came with the house.  We have a few of the smaller variety that we got from our friend Bill before he died, but almost all of the full sized, giant, German Bearded Iris came with the mortgage. 

Every so often I need to dig them up, clean them out and then replant them.. and not necessarily in the same spot.  The best time to move irises are in late summer, mainly July and August.  That gives them enough time to get established before the ground freezes.  You can move them at any time, but they may not bloom for you if you move them in the spring.  I had to move some irises one year in the spring.  I think I got one bloom out of them that year and it was during the summer!

I mainly have Bearded irises. The flower is made up of three upright segments that are called standards, three dropping segments known as falls and the fuzzy growth that runs down the falls is called the “beard”.  They grow from rhizomes, which are a kind of underground stem. 

There are different classifications of bearded iris.  Dwarf bearded iris are from 4 to 10 inches tall, standard-dwarf bearded are 10 to 15 inches tall, intermediate bearded are 15 to 28 inches tall and the tall bearded are more than 28 inches tall.  They bloom in the spring with the dwarf bearded being the first to bloom, usually in mid-April to early May.  The last of the bearded to bloom are the tall-bearded varieties and they are usually from mid-May to mid-June.  And there are more and more cultivars that will bloom again in late summer or early fall.  The leaves are thin and sharp and grow in fan-shaped clumps.

Bearded irises are relatively easy to grow, they do need to be divided every three to five years.  If they aren’t, the plants become overcrowded and tend not to produce flowers.  They can also be more prone to disease.

Whenever you chose to move the irises, dig them up carefully.  Cut the leaves back to one-third of their original height.  Clean the dirt off the rhizomes with a stream of water and cut them apart with a sharp knife.  Get rid of the part in the center that has no leaves.  Throw away anything that looks rotted or looks like it has borer damage.  This is hard to do.  I keep thinking if it is still solid, it is still good, but if there are signs of borers (holes in the rhizome) throw it away.

When you are ready to put the rhizomes back in the ground, put them in fertile, well-drained soil and full sun.  The can tolerate light shade, you will get more flowers if they are in full sun.  If they are put in wet and poorly drained sites they can end up with bacterial soft rot.  Believe me, it’s disgusting.  I had a lot of this after 2008.  You can improve poorly drained soil by working organic matter, like peat or compost, into the soil before planting.  You can also use raised beds.  We have been talking about that for our garden.  I think it would display the irises off quite nicely.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

When you replant your iris, dig a hole large enough to take the rhizome and the roots.  Build a mound in the center of the hole and place the rhizome on the top of the mound, spread the roots around the mound, cover with soil and water well.  The rhizome should be just below the soil surface.

If you move the irises in the fall and want to remember what color the flower was, right it on the leaf with a permanent marker.  I did that last year and then ended up not moving the irises.  You definitely want to move them before the leaf dries up.  It gets hard to read!

Repeated freezing and thawing of the soil during winter months can be tough on newly planted iris.  They can be heaved out of the soil.  To prevent any damage, put a light layer of straw on top of the rhizomes in the late fall.  Remove the mulch in early spring so they can have plenty of air moving around them.  The first spring of newly planted irises with bloom sparsely but should be in full bloom for later years.

Have fun with the iris!

Dig it!

Posted under General, Spring

One of the best parts about winter being over is that I get to spend time outside in the yard.  Unfortunately, it’s still pretty brown.  I was surprised at how much was still green and it proves the insulating power of snow.

With the 60 degree temperatures I managed to get quite a bit done on Sunday afternoon and Monday after work.  Well, Dwayne helped a bit on Monday….

There is always a lot to do to get your garden ready for the growing season.  You have to get all of the old, dead stuff out of the way so the new, green stuff can get through.

I cut the Butterfly Bush back so that it can grow and found that it already has some new growth on it.  There was also some growth on some of the lowest branches… the ones that had the most insulation from the snow. Make sure you check before you trim, although you should get growth from the roots.

Down in Kansas where my mother-in-law lives, the new growth grows right on the old branches, so she doesn’t cut hers back, but our winters are harder on our plants and tends to kill the stems.   The same with my hydrangea.  I usually let it go a bit until I see where the new growth is and then I cut back the stuff that is definitely dead. 

We have a small area right outside the garage door that is mainly in shade so we planted a lot of plants several years ago.  About the only things that are still there are the bleeding heart, some bluebells and the astilbe. 

I dug out my roses from the mulch that I buried them in last fall.

I unwrapped the pot that was too big to move.  The experiment seems to have worked.  The pot looks fine.

Betty’s poppy has some babies to keep her company this year.

The rabbits were hungry over the winter.

The rose appears to be okay, although it will have to work a little harder to get those branches back.

The big project is the grass.  Every year under the weight of the snow, it gets crushed. 

In order to keep it healthy you have to get air to the roots.  That involves “fluffing”.  I don’t really know if there is an actual term for this, but it involves raking the grass so that air can circulate around the blades of grass.  You don’t need to rake heavily, but you do have to get the grass back up.  This link (Garden 11 029) will open a short movie of me actually working.  Of course, there is no proof that it is actually me doing the raking, but just take my word for it.  Dwayne wasn’t home.  I don’t want him to see that I can actually do the raking.

Of course, we couldn’t do all that work without supervision!

There is still plenty to do.  The weather just has to cooperate!   With the colder temperatures expected over the weekend, I will covering the plants that I have just uncovered, although many will be fine with temperatures in the 20s.

Have fun cleaning!

Dig it!

Posted under Spring, Videos

Sue sent me an email asking about her angel-leaf winged begonias.  She puts them out in the spring and brings them inside to overwinter and take cuttings.  They have become sticky.  The plants look great and are flowering but everything she has tried hasn’t worked.  I don’t know the exact things she tried, but there are some things to try when you think you may have bugs on your houseplants.

 

 

Sticky stuff usually means that you have some hitchhikers from the garden.  Warm and dry conditions in your house, along with the lack of predators, will allow populations of small, soft-bodied insects, like aphids, whiteflies, mealybugs and scales to grow quickly.

 

 

They excrete a sticky substance that, when outside, attracts ants.  This substance can also be home to fungal disease.  In order to get rid of the sticky substance you need to get rid of the sticky-substance-secreting pests.  The trick is to do it without hurting the plant. 

Soft bodied insects can be killed with an insecticidal soap or neem oil (always follow label directions).

Neem is a tree in the mahogany family and most of the tree can be utilized for many medicinal uses. 

The insecticidal soap can be found on shelves, too, or you can make your own.  We had some asters that became infested with whiteflies one year in our garden.  We bought some insecticidal soap from the store and used the entire bottle up in one use (we had three large plants to coat).  It was going to be expensive if we kept buying it from the store due to the large size of our plants.  After doing some research online we found out we could make our own soap. 

Your ingredients are dish detergent and water. 

We used Dawn, but you can use Ivory, Palmolive or even Murphy’s Oil soap.  The type of soap doesn’t appear to be the main thing to watch for.  The right concentration is the key to be effective and prevent damage to the plants.  I have done this before but can’t remember what the concentration was.  I looked online and found anywhere from 1 teaspoon per quart to 1 tablespoon per quart to 1 tablespoon per gallon.  So, I tried calling around to see what I could find.  One of the articles I read had a phone number.  I called and the person who wrote the article no longer worked there and the person who answered the phone didn’t know.  Everyone I called was very helpful, but didn’t know the correct answer.  Fortunately, my good friend Heidi Tietz-De Silva from Peterson and Tietz Florist and Greenhouses here in Waterloo happened to stop into the station.  So, I thought I would take advantage of our friendship ask “The Professional”.  She only uses Dawn dishwashing liquid in the concentration of 1 part Dawn to 9 parts water.   Sounds good to me (and familiar)!

Once you have the insecticidal soap mixed up, you have to use it correctly to get the desired results.  Thoroughly cover the plants leaves and stem including the undersides of the leaves.  If you don’t completely wet the insect, you can’t control it.  The insecticidal soap may need to be reapplied every week for a few weeks to control some pests, like spider mites and immature scales, or if you have a severe infestation of aphids or mealybugs.  If you need to spray the plants often, you run the risk of damaging the leaves, so wash or rinse the plants off within a couple of hours after spraying. 

Of course, you could always get a few ladybugs to help out, too, but then you have to deal with them flying around your house!

Dig it!

Posted under General, Pests