Today was a beautiful day, sunny, warm, a little breeze –almost perfect. Mr. Rō worked in the iris garden most of the day while I ran into town to buy potting soil and material to make a new raised bed. Our work will begin in earnest from now through the fall with first the iris beds, then the vegetable garden, and in-between putting in new perennial beds, adding some trees and shrubs, and keeping the grass cut.
When we moved to this property two years ago in June, there was a drought and while we waited for rain so the soil could be broken up and for amendments to be trucked in, our iris baked in the garage. We had dug over 500 varieties from our previous garden to bring with us to our new home. Each iris had its name written on the foliage and its garden marker was place along with it in a brown paper bag. The outside of the bag was then labeled and grouped into decades. What a lot of work went into building this garden but by the end of July we finally had all the iris planted and garden markers in place in plots of 10 year intervals. It was so hot and dry and my husband worried continuously if the plants would survive the digging in May, baking in June, planting in July and the long summer drought. He had taken particular care of some first year seedlings he had hybridized and was waiting to see if one of them would make the grade. For these a new raised bed was built and became their home while he monitors them for the next few years. We were thankful that the winter wasn't very cold and for the rain that finally came in late fall and again in late winter. As soon as the weather broke in March Mr. Rō was out weeding, fertilizing and worrying about rot. We had been without rain all summer and now we were getting too much for the iris to survive in our clay soil.
To our surprise, we had beautiful bloom starting in early May. In late May we flew to Portland, Oregon for the National Iris Society's Annual Meeting and had three full days of touring such wonderful gardens as Cooley's, Schreiner's and several other smaller, but very imp
ressive gardens. We toured the garden in the rain, bus load, after bus load, after bus load of people tracking through the iris. What miserable fun! We extended our vacation and traveled into Washington Sate and even over to Canada to the Buchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. We returned home in June and were relieved to have enough rain during our second summer to keep the iris healthy. In August, iris were dug and divided from this first year garden, and given to our local Iris Society for their annual fund raiser. Everyone teased my husband that he had West Coast rhizomes because they were so large and healthy. The bottom of that drained fish pond scraped up, delivered, and spread in the iris bed had paid off and when fall rolled around our re-blooming iris surprised us by putting on a big show of bloom stalks. Sadly, most of them never made it to flower because of our early frost. Still, what a wonderful 'Iris Year' we had. Now we must work toward making the second year a success.
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When we moved to this property two years ago in June, there was a drought and while we waited for rain so the soil could be broken up and for amendments to be trucked in, our iris baked in the garage. We had dug over 500 varieties from our previous garden to bring with us to our new home. Each iris had its name written on the foliage and its garden marker was place along with it in a brown paper bag. The outside of the bag was then labeled and grouped into decades. What a lot of work went into building this garden but by the end of July we finally had all the iris planted and garden markers in place in plots of 10 year intervals. It was so hot and dry and my husband worried continuously if the plants would survive the digging in May, baking in June, planting in July and the long summer drought. He had taken particular care of some first year seedlings he had hybridized and was waiting to see if one of them would make the grade. For these a new raised bed was built and became their home while he monitors them for the next few years. We were thankful that the winter wasn't very cold and for the rain that finally came in late fall and again in late winter. As soon as the weather broke in March Mr. Rō was out weeding, fertilizing and worrying about rot. We had been without rain all summer and now we were getting too much for the iris to survive in our clay soil.
To our surprise, we had beautiful bloom starting in early May. In late May we flew to Portland, Oregon for the National Iris Society's Annual Meeting and had three full days of touring such wonderful gardens as Cooley's, Schreiner's and several other smaller, but very imp
ressive gardens. We toured the garden in the rain, bus load, after bus load, after bus load of people tracking through the iris. What miserable fun! We extended our vacation and traveled into Washington Sate and even over to Canada to the Buchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. We returned home in June and were relieved to have enough rain during our second summer to keep the iris healthy. In August, iris were dug and divided from this first year garden, and given to our local Iris Society for their annual fund raiser. Everyone teased my husband that he had West Coast rhizomes because they were so large and healthy. The bottom of that drained fish pond scraped up, delivered, and spread in the iris bed had paid off and when fall rolled around our re-blooming iris surprised us by putting on a big show of bloom stalks. Sadly, most of them never made it to flower because of our early frost. Still, what a wonderful 'Iris Year' we had. Now we must work toward making the second year a success..
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