The Nitty Gritty on the Down and Dirty

By Vanessa Spady

When it comes to growing iris, soil conditions will often dictate the quality and quantity of your rhizomes and blooms. Sure, other things make a difference as well—I for one think that a zesty combination of spoiling and neglect make for happy plants, but that’s for another post. About the soil...

Our little Comedy of Iris garden is located in central California, in a primarily agricultural area, which means we have a nice amount of space to start with (about an acre of open, slightly sloped land), but also some significant challenges when it comes to the dreadful native soil. As I mentioned previously, our soil has two basic textures—pudding when it rains, and concrete the rest of the time.

Luckily, the nutrient level is very low! (Hooray?) So trucking in good soil and amendments was a necessity. I had six yards of a really lovely loam delivered, and much to my astonishment, I have used it all. But, only the best for my newly purchased rhizomes, because, let’s face it, I want to see massive glorious blooms in the Spring!

Additionally, our hard ground is home to several kinds of critters that love it when we water—it makes the soil soft for them to dig through, and gives them something tasty and nutritious to eat. I, personally, do not like killing critters when they are in their territory, but no amount of reasonable conversation makes ground squirrels understand that they should go around the foundations of your barn when tunneling across your property. And gophers don’t care that the plant they just destroyed was a gift from your recently deceased mother... it was moist and tasty! Basically, any time you add water to our land, you attract the very vermin you want nowhere near your precious plants. Ugh.

Furthermore, it gets very hot here, and it’s quite dry. Because this is basically an irrigated desert, it’s over 100 degrees for weeks at time—so, really hot. And managing the watering (which requires more care during a drought) is also critical. Iris don’t like to be too wet (or they rot), and managing their moisture and nutrients is crucial for them to propagate and increase. But creating moisture means attracting critters that will eat their roots, if not the entire rhizome... wheeee?

So, even after we had good soil brought in, we faced challenges in keeping critters out of the beds, and not losing our stock to heat or rot. Time for some creative solutions.

When I was gardening back in my suburban setting, the soil was decent, critters were few, and the water was a spigot away... it was easy. All I had to do was not over-water, and feed once or twice a year, and I had gorgeous, happy iris all the time. After moving here, with the more challenging conditions, I have tried a variety of solutions, after losing most of a bed of named iris to a ground squirrel.

When I first planted iris in our country soil, they did so-so. I didn’t initially know how to manage the soil moisture and feeding was completely different here. But once I got it figured out, I saw lots of green growth, and happily awaited my first blooms. But they never came, and the number of rhizomes seemed to dwindle. Finally, a bit of loose soil at the back of the bed exposed the dirty truth: a ground squirrel had tunneled into the bed, from under my barn. He had been snacking on my lovely iris from beneath, and I hadn’t noticed him for weeks. This is when it started to get a little Caddy Shack...

I took up the few remaining iris, and dug out the entire bed to a depth of about one foot. I molded tight-weave chicken wire into an open-shoe box shape, and laid it into the hole where the bed had been. I then re-filled the bed, and planted a new batch of rhizomes, confident I had outsmarted the little blighter. Joke was on me, though. Several weeks later, as I was watering, I noticed a bump of loose dirt near the outside edge of the bed, and that dirt was moving.

“Ha!” I thought triumphantly to myself. “He’s just run into my chicken wire basket, and can’t tunnel his way through it!” I quietly laid down the hose, and watched to see what would happen. The little guy pushed the dirt out of the tunnel and popped his head above ground. I could see him looking around, so I held perfectly still. He ducked in again for a moment, then came up again, and to my outrage and astonishment, he got out of his tunnel, walked over the lip of the chicken wire barrier, and began to tunnel down into the bed, right in front of me!

The hours spent digging out the bed, making the chicken wire barrier, placing it in so carefully, and replanting the whole bed was undone in one moment. I had been played by a ground squirrel!

All bets were off after that. I dug up the remaining rhizomes from that bed and moved them into pots, but I never liked that solution, nor did my plants. Then I struck on using pallets as beds, which did a good job once I got the soil combination right. I placed the pallets on rocky ground, where the squirrels don’t really dig, and then filled all the slats with a combination of native soil, amendments, and planting mix. This had the added advantage of making it simple to keep iris from one bed or section from creeping into another section. I kept only one kind of iris in each pallet, and there was never any confusion. If we ever have an emergency, I can pick up the entire pallet and move it, bed and all. 

We knew from the beginning of this project that just digging up a little bed in the ground and plunking down the rhizomes was not going to be the method for success. For this initial growing year, we are trying a combination of kiddie pools mounted to pallets, raised beds (with a base of weed blocking cloth and wire mesh), and tires (with the same wire and cloth base). We cleared the surface of the soil of the dried and dead native growth (code for “weeds”), and began to layout the different kinds of beds we had to see how they might best work with the kinds of iris we ordered.

This was our preliminary layout, after we cleared the weeds, but before we put down the weed blocking cloth and wire. Ok, and before we painted the tires.

We opted to use only one level of these raised beds for this first year to see how they would do.

To give the iris the best chances for success, separating them from the ground was the smart move.  Besides, I don’t want to encourage any further comparisons between myself and Carl from Caddy Shack. 

The project has expanded considerably since this first phase, so you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for updates and new photos. And you can bet there will be another load of the gorgeous loam heading our way sometime in the near future. Please, just don’t tell the gophers or ground squirrels.

And because I promised I would, here is a wonderful iris from Chris’ garden:

'Leave The Light On' ( Riley Probst, R. 2013) Seedling #U4WHXHM. IB, 22 (56 cm), Early, midseason and late bloom. Standards blue-purple with 1/16th gold edge; style arms bright yellow, vertical purple veining on style crests; falls blue-purple luminata pattern, bright yellow area with 1/4" white spear extending downward from beard; beards orange; pronounced sweet fragrance. 'Wild Hair' X 'High Master'. Fleur de Lis Garden 2013. Honorable Mention 2015.

Step One: Decide What Step One Should Be

By Vanessa Spady

Back in September, Chris and I decided to start a growing project that I lovingly call ‘a comedy of iris.’ We had the general idea of having a larger-than-personal growing and touring garden on a piece of property near our homes (originally bought for my mother). In order to address the issues we have in our area of poor soil, temperature and moisture extremes, and a hearty population of burrowing critters, we also decided to experiment with different kinds of beds and watering systems. We did not have a hard-and-fast idea of what this project would look like, which is to say, we had a lot of enthusiasm, but not a concrete plan… The comedy will probably just write itself.

September is late in the season for ordering and planting iris, but not too late, particularly in our climate. The temperatures in September were still hot, even as the days became shorter. So, online we went, iris shopping with a purpose! And, as the shipping season for iris ended in mere days, choosing the iris for our first year of growing was the top priority. An urgent, must-do task of immediate importance. I figured that should be Step One.

When you have as much enthusiasm for iris as we do, it’s remarkably easy to find yourself spending, say, two or three hours shopping for iris online. It’s also easy to click “add to cart” a shocking number of times in that duration. And having a reason to buy more than you already have, well, that is a bit of a dream come true. But choosing carefully, and for purposes beyond “Ooooooh, pretty!” meant slowing down, methodically selecting for attributes and qualities outside of personal preferences. I also needed to ensure I didn’t purchase iris Chris already had and vice-versa, which put the brakes on the runaway shopping spree aspect of populating our first beds. So it slowed down our Step One a touch, which was probably beneficial.

The “before” shot. This is the area where our glamorous garden now exists.

But the beds weren’t ready for an imminent shipment of rhizomes, so certainly preparation of soil needed to become a top priority, and get done ASAP.  This meant we needed to find someone to bring in high-quality soil, as our native soil is, um, well “poor” is the nice way to say it (more on our native soil later). So finding someone to truck in really good planting soil had to be put first on the list of accomplishments.

Of course, before the beds went in, we had to decide on the layout and which kind of watering system we’d be using so those would be ready before the soil arrived, making that the thing we had to start with pronto, maybe even sooner. Definitely, we needed that done as the initial step.

Right after purchasing all the parts for the drip and soakers, which we couldn’t really do until we’d finalized the layout, which would depend on how many iris we bought, and also be somewhat determined by which iris we bought since some of the layout of the beds would undoubtedly be dictated by the types and colors of iris in our purchase... So, we really had to get that done first.

Step One, for sure, should be the uh, the um... what did we just decide? [Re-traces steps, notices circular logic.]

Well, clearly shopping for iris won the contest! Once the order was placed, we moved on to the next step of laying out the beds, designing the watering system, and having some gorgeous, healthy dirt brought in. Clearly, there was a logical, obvious order to this. [Cue the audience to laugh now.]

Wonderful loam, delivered right to the edge of the garden. 

To my surprise, we have used it all!

More soon on adventures in layout design, what kinds of beds to employ, and what kinds of obstacles greeted us as we moved forward. Let me just say this: kiddie pools.

And because I promised photos of iris in every posting, here is 'Pink Kitten':

'Pink Kitten' V. Wood 1977
Blue shade of pink, lined deeper on F.; tangerine beard tipped lighter. 
69-2 (New Frontier x Signature) X Dove Wings.  
Classification - Intermediate Bearded 
Bloom Period - Early and Reblooming 
Bloom Height - 20"

Begin at the beginning...if you can remember when it began

By Vanessa Spady

It all started for me quite some time ago, at least several decades, but the exact moment is lost. It probably wasn’t really a moment, though, it was more like a gradual awareness, and then an appreciation, and before I knew it, like so many others, I was officially an iris enthusiast. If you aren’t aware of the dramatic and exciting world of iris, then, yes, I am referring to the flowers.

When did I fall in love with iris? I can’t really say. But fall in love I did, and that love has inspired a project, the breadth and scope of which only love could inspire! Yes, this is a love story, to be sure!

'Twice Told' (William Maryott, R. 1994). Sdlg. L172D. TB, 34-36" (86-91 cm). 

Midseason bloom and rebloom. Standards flesh to light beige, slight maroon at midrib; Falls velvety medium red maroon; beards tangerine. H92B: (F154D: (('Latin Lover' x 'Victorian Days') x Keppel 74-32E: (('Roundup' x 'Artwork' sib) x 'Osage Buff')) x E31D: (('Dream Fantasy' x 'Pink Sleigh') x 'Heather Blush')) X 'Cameo Wine'. Maryott 1994.

 

So, onto the players: Vanessa (that’s me) and Chris, two ladies who have pesky day jobs but still garden with a passion. We are members of local chapters of The American Iris Society, and have had plenty of dirt under our nails. We met because of iris, and we have an absolute hoot gardening and talking shop and getting grimy in our gardens together. What fun it is to have an iris buddy!

The plot is a simple one, or rather, it seemed simple when we first conceived it: grow iris. Well, ok, we are already doing that, so grow more iris. Have a touring garden. Work on a larger scale. Experiment with growing environments, layouts, watering systems. Meet the challenges of our climate and topography. Walk the line between full-on, blown-out love for iris growing, and the tweaky, quirky, danger zone of iris obsession. So, it seems this is a comedy.

The setting: an almost rural neighborhood in central California. Chris has beds at her place, and I have some almost-feral beds at my home, but the primary focus of the growing project is at a separate property on my block. The weather here varies from very hot summer days (often over 110°F) to below freezing winter nights. The soil varies, too: concrete in the summer, pudding in the winter. And we have our share of hazardous critters, primarily ground squirrels and large gophers, but also sheep, dogs, gardeners, and the occasional raccoon. Thus you can tell this story is a farce.

The inspiration: We have toured professional grower’s facilities, and have been educated and warned that growing for fun and growing for profit are very different activities. Since we’re both level-headed and practical, we are not proposing to put anyone growing professionally out of business, but we want to expand our gardens to a more-than-average scope. We will be growing iris out of love for the plants, not a grab for gold. So obviously, this story is a drama.

 'Heartbreak Hotel' ( George Sutton, R. 1997). Sdlg. G-19-ARSA. TB, 37" (94 cm), Midseason late bloom. Standards and style arms salmon (RHS 27A); Falls imperial purple (78A); beards nasturtium red (32B), 1" salmon and violet purple horn; ruffled, laced; slight sweet fragrance. 'Sweet Musette' X 'Twice Thrilling'. Sutton 1998.

To anyone who is already an iris enthusiast, or expert, or grower, or casual gardener, this may sound familiar. To anyone outside the world of iris, this story will probably be an eye opener, and a tour through a world you might hardly imagine really exists. It has all the makings of an epic, spanning centuries and continents, involving science and luck, with characters from every place that has enough dirt and enough sun and enough water to grow a few weeds.

I won’t cover that much ground in this first post, but no doubt I will eventually tell of the adventures of the humble and magnificent iris, and its swashbuckling journey from the old world to the new, from manor house to interstate rest-stop, and mostly, of how two nice ladies in the countryside are going to try their hands at growing iris for more than just the fun of it.

Certainly, there will be laughter and tears, great successes, and frustrating setbacks. And once a year, there will be a glorious, magnificent, stunning bloom season. That’s our reward.

While sharing our process will be fun and hopefully entertaining, sharing our blooms and our love of iris is really the main goal. Although we are well out of bloom season now, I promise to include photos in each post, to remind all of us why we go to so much trouble for one little plant.

Yes, it is a love story.

'Revere' (Joseph Ghio, R. 2001). Seedling 97-36B. TB, height 40" (102 cm). Very early to early mid season bloom. Standards white, yellow halo; style arms white, fringed gold;Falls white, blue rim; beards gold. 95-36C. 'Impulsive' sibling, X 'Dear Jean'. Bay View 2002.