New sloping bed and fall transplanting

Kathleen Sayce

A multi-year planting plan is coming together for fall on a dune west of my house. It began four years ago with systematic ivy removal and suppression, and continued despite the pandemic. This summer, with ivy and blackberries suppressed, remnants of an old orchard were cut down and chipped. I left 4 tall stumps about 8 feet high for future vines. The site is finally ready to plant, with a nice pile of wood chips staged to spread out. 

I’ve been hoarding Pacifica iris plants for more than three years. These are a mix of unnamed vigorous seedlings, named cultivars, seedlings from same, and species seedlings—Iris tenax collections from various places in the Pacific Northwest, or color selections from Paul Rogers, who is working on named lines in a range of colors in this species. I also have a few pots of Iris innominata seedlings.

One of the stashes of PCI pots, waiting for fall

Other plants include Pacific reedgrass (Calamagrostis nutkensis), western sword fern (Polystichum munitum), several Ceanothus species and varieties, some low growing manzanitas (Arctostaphylos), and perennial wildflowers. 

The new planting area is on a sloping dune facing east, has a slope break (where the dune gets steeper) about ten to fifteen feet downslope. Ceanothus and manzanita will go in a meandering line along the slope break,  with grasses and ferns above and below, and irises in between in color patches, each plant about two feet apart. 

An unnamed yellow PCI with red and gold signal, ready to be planted this fall.

Columbine, bleeding heart, yarrow, broadleaf lupine, California poppy and other wildflowers will be planted or seeded over the slope. Fringecups (Tellima grandiflora) will go in shadier areas. This native saxifrage is a great filler in planters, with lime green foliage. 

As with most of my garden, this new area will get low to no irrigation. I will add compost and wood chip mulch as surface layers. By planting in fall, as the weather cools and rains begin, initial watering will be minimal, and thereafter, only in extremely dry hot events for the first 2-3 years. 

Dark pink PCI with gold and very dark signal. This group has PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' heritage.

Gardeners often have angst-ridden thoughts about new planting areas, and I am no exception. Eik and deer spend a fair amount of time in my yard, and I worry that they will find all those new plants tasty, and eat them down, or so annoying that they pull them out. Rosemary falls into the latter category—elk regularly trample my rosemary, breaking down the branches. I prune them and reshape them; the elk trample them again. I may end up with rosemary near my house and nowhere else in the garden! A naturalist friend says elk are determined landscape engineers, and pull out or trample the plants they don’t want to make room for the ones they do.  

My goal is a colorful, low to no water slope of mostly native plants, with shrubs for the Spotted Towhees, and enough ground cover for white and gold crown sparrows and other ground nesting birds. We’ll see what the deer and elk think of this!

Waiting for Rain on the West Coast

by Kathleen Sayce 

The astronomical calendar has rotated into autumn: Rain and cooler weather bring mushrooms, migrating birds and salmon, and new growth for many types of irises.  Here on the West Coast, it’s time to plan fall lifting, dividing, and replanting of Pacifica irises.

Wait for your plants to show fresh white roots that are at least two inches long. If you have access to irrigation water, water thoroughly a few times in September and October to help encourage Pacifica irises to break summer dormancy. Watering is needed only when replanting, and not weekly thereafter (unless it doesn’t rain for weeks and the soil dries out). 

Monitor weather for rain, and wait for the soil to dampen to a depth of at least six inches (or irrigate your garden). When new iris roots emerge, start planning times to rework and plant flower beds. Better yet, consider scheduling a planting party! Along the coast, this is usually October into November. 

Take time to replenish soil coverings (aka mulches), and amend soils with nutrients and carboniferous materials like compost, ramial, and biochar. Any time you dig a plant hole, add some carbon, work it into the hole, and then replant. My preferred carbon-rich materials and sequence (bottom to top) are: biochar, compost, ramial, wood chips. 

Although I make my own compost, I never have enough. Ants, mice and voles haul seeds around, and seem to like dragging grass seeds and some dicots into my compost piles. If you can get it, compost from methane digesters is seed free. 

When I rework beds, I layer biochar and compost over the open garden bed that is ready to replant. Then I plant into this area, working the carbon materials down and around each hole and the roots. I may also add more compost on top, below the top layers (ramial and wood chips). 

Ramial is a freshly shredded blend of hardwood stems and leaves, like shrub and tree branches. During fall cleanup I shred hardwood branches before leaf fall, and put these chips out as a top dressing on garden beds. This mix breaks down easily without needing extra nitrogen, and helps boost carbon in the soil. It’s almost as good as foliar sprays for plant health. Like compost, I never have enough ramial. 

Biochar is charcoal, pretreated with compost to inoculate it with microorganisms, and is usually ground into a coarse powder. It helps soils retain water and nutrients, and promotes good soil structure. It’s especially a boost for beneficial soil fungi, which helps promote healthy roots in Pacifica iris.

Perennials thrive with wood chip mulches. We have trees, which regularly need limbs removed. I chip them, and turn the resulting wood chip pile to compost. Fungal mycelia appear throughout the wood piles within a few weeks. When I add these chips to an iris bed, fungi are coming with them. Fungi are beneficial for both the soil and my plants. 

If wood chips are too coarse when fresh, run them through a chipper.  (NOTE: I have learned the hard way to wear a mask when chipping—my lungs do not care to inhale wood dust, fine bits of leaves, shredded fungi, or compost fragments. For extra protection, put a bandana over the top of a N95 mask. Eye protection is a good idea too.)

Fine wood chips can also be added to a compost pile. They provide a coarse source of carbon and help break down food scraps for optimal compost texture.

Other soil amendments to add to garden soils during the fall include: eelgrass, dried kelp meal, ground oyster shells, feather meal, and mineral soil amendments. 

Eelgrass mats wash up on the boat ramp at the local port, which gardeners can collect. We have enough rain that we can add it to garden beds, on top of the wood chips, and know the rain will dilute the salt. Otherwise, lay the eelgrass out to compost, let rain wash the pile for a month or two, then spread it.

Winter is coming, but before that season comes fall--the best time to plant, replant and transplant on the West Coast. Enjoy the season!

Truth, Consequences, and the Inevitability of Both

By Vanessa Spady


Once again, as I begin writing the collection of deep and significant lessons I have learned as a gardener of iris, I am humbled, awed, and pooped. Apparently, I like this state of affairs as I am in no way considering a change to my gardening circumstances. I have a large garden, and as you know, with iris that means that it’s always expanding. I don’t keep up with all the associated chores, but scaling back is not my plan. While I love the idea of being “done” planting, or weeding, or feeding, I must acknowledge that it’s probably not in the cards for me. That’s the truth.

I admire the iris gardeners who get their orders of new rhizomes and dash out to the (already prepared) beds and lovingly, carefully plant those new iris in the long-ago designated order and space where they belong. I have nothing but respect for the gardeners who seem to have conquered weeds, leaf spot, excess increases, and the laws of time, and post pictures of their impeccable, immaculate, gorgeous and altogether perfect looking iris beds. I don’t know how they do it, truly I don’t. 

Even when I wasn’t working, I didn’t have perfect beds, or manage to feed or weed on a timely schedule. I created lots of beauty, but it was always squeezed in between the other things I was doing in my life, and never, except on day one, do my beds look groomed or tended. Sometimes they don’t even look like beds that were planted on purpose. Things around here get that feral look pretty quickly.

Scroll back in time to see how these looked when they were first planted...
Feral is the right word for the current conditions

But I do have the ambition to plant my rhizomes as soon as they arrive. And I know I’m not alone. I know some of you have rhizomes growing—nay—thriving where you put them down “just until you can get them planted..." I believe that I’m not the only one who pots new rhizomes with the promise to “get them into the ground when the weather cools off a bit” and then ends up creating a drip system to water all those potted iris… I am certain that I’m not the only one who finds a box in the garage sometime in September or October and opens it to find a cluster of dried and cranky rhizomes that have been completely forgotten in the midst of everything else that has to be done which sadly comes before gardening. That’s the consequence.

I do a lot of apologizing to my rhizome orders, or rather, to the unopened boxes they ship in. I often resent the parts of my life that require my time and attention and keep me from planning and executing those perfect beds of perfect arrangement and perfect sun, water, and exposure conditions. How dare I have to eat, and sleep, and go to work? How dare that new business I bought in May take up so much of my time… it’s bloom season! Or, it’s digging season! Or, it’s new order arrival season! Or it’s dividing season, or planting season, or weeding season… It’s not realistic for me to ignore my life, and so I squeeze in iris time whenever and wherever I can.

So I freely admit that I have slam-planted about half the iris that I have ordered into raised beds in the shade, in no particular order, after soaking them for a day or two because they sat for (up to) 6 weeks in boxes in my hot garage. I also admit that I received orders from vendors I did not remember actually ordering from (and I just found out I still have one more shipment headed my way, egad!). And I must also disclose that shopping from the comfort of my couch in the midst of those long, cold winter evenings means that I’m receiving more iris than a team of us could prep for and plant in a timely fashion.

This is the punk-rock of planting iris. I make a nice soil mixture, I put them
in the shade, and I plant them in whatever order I grab them out of the box.
Unorthodox, but they have name tags, and in they’re in a bed,
so I’m satisfied for now

The good news is that the rhizomes (mostly) forgive me. I break all the rules, and they still grow for me. I neglect them. I overheat them. I ignore them. I am in all ways a bad iris mom. So far, they look a little dry, they aren’t as lush or green as they could be, and they certainly aren’t going to be re-blooming this fall. But they’re in decent soil, and they make new green shoots, and they turn out to be just the right plant for the kind of gardener I am these days. Which is humbled, awed, and pooped.

And, the new rhizomes are slowly but surely getting planted in temporary raised beds, and labels are being made simultaneously (which is certainly part of the delay in planting, in my feeble defense), and I suspect I’ll have all the 2016 orders in the ground before, oh, September eighth? Maybe as late as the tenth? I’m pretty happy with that, since “in the ground” is a major step in the right direction. The truth is I love iris, so I embrace this chaos. The consequence is that I sometimes garden after dark, and make labels on my lunch hour.

Run out of real name tags? No problem. There are always plastic knives around.
Note the not luscious green leaves on some of the rhizomes.
Trust that the roots look fantastic.
No, really. They do.

Once I’m done planting the new ones, I can consider separating, replanting, and moving some of the vastly-increased rhizomes from last year’s project… Oh yeah! Those! 

And, because we need inspiration when all we see is dirt and dry leaves and name tags, here are some pictures of the iris that bloomed earlier this year. My gosh I love them so...

Natural Blonde, and a close-up to show the iridescence

'Natural Blond' ( Joseph Ghio, R. 2002). Seedling #97-24B3. TB, 36" (91 cm), Early midseason bloom. Warm creamy peach, with light peach sherbet standards center, heart, and falls shoulders; beards peach, tangerine base. Seedling #95-29U2: (seedling #89-89R2: ( 'Lightning Bolt' x ( 'Stratagem' x 'Bygone Era')) x Shoop seedling #89-23-2: ( 'Tropical Magic' x sibling)) X seedling #93-40J3: ( 'Heaven' x seedling #91-92B2: (( 'Birthday Greetings' x 'Bubbling Along') x ( 'Birthday Greetings' x 'Presence'))). Bay View 2003. Honorable Mention 2005

'Coal Seams' ( Schreiner R. 2013) Sdlg. MM 425-1. TB, 41" (104 cm), Midseason bloom. Standards dark purple (RHS 89B); Falls slightly darker purple (89A); beards dark purple. 'Badlands' X GG 378-A: ( 'Dark Passion' x 'Thunder Spirit'). Schreiner 2013. Honorable Mention 2015

'Suspicion' ( Keith Keppel, R. 1998). Seedling 93-83H. TB, 38" (97 cm), Mid bloom season. Standards greyed greenish yellow (M&P 19-DE-1), central area blended aster violet (45-F-7); style arms greenish yellow (19-C-1), lavender lip; falls light greenish yellow (19-B-1), slightly darker margins (19-C-1) and shoulders (20-K-1), giving russet green to oil yellow (12-L-1) effect; beards yellow (10-L-6); pronounced sweet fragrance. 'Wishful Thinking' X 'Spring Shower'. Keppel 1999.

Autumn: Transplanting time for Pacifica Iris

Kathleen Sayce 

September 20, 2015

Many irises are easy to transplant at any time of year. Dig them up, divide, cart to new homes and tuck in. Clip off some leaves to reduce moisture loss while the new roots form, and away they go. Not so for PCIs. Treat them this way, and they go root tips up before you can find your watering can.

Healthy PCI transplants:  new fans, and healthy new white roots. Both of these I. douglasiana pieces are ready to plant. 

There are two times of year to successfully transplant PCIs: Autumn and Spring.

At these times, PCI roots are in active growth. Check the roots, removing soil gently around the base of a fan or two. If there are white roots, one to four inches long, then get out the shovel and start digging. It's time.

New fans on a PCI, but no new roots yet; this plant needs to wait a few weeks before being divided.

Why Autumn and Spring for root growth? Pacifica Iris are native to the West Coast of North America, which has a Mediterranean climate––during the drought period each summer, these and other native species go dormant. In mild winter climates, PCI may have live roots all winter, but they dry down and wait out dry summers.

Summer drought duration depends on latitude, the farther south you are, the longer the duration, which varies from less than three months to more than ten months on the West Coast. I garden at 46°N, so droughts usually last less than three months, though this year it was more than five.

If you water regularly, PCI initiate new roots earlier in the fall than do those depending on rain. You can divide and transplant much earlier in the fall and later in the spring.

This flat of PCI seedlings has been watered regularly all summer, and is ready to move into the garden.

PCI seedlings in pots are tough, and can stand being transplanted several times in the first year or two of life. Even larger plants, one to five gallons, can withstand transplanting slightly outside the Autumn or Spring periods. These have all had regular water, as they must to live in pots.

Other tips:

Mulch after planting to keep roots cool

Amend soil with carbon, such as compost and biochar

Move plants on cool cloudy damp days rather than on hot sunny days

Add 'Superthrive' (a registered vitamin formula for plants) to the watering can

Water well for a few weeks after planting

Use a dilute liquid fertilizer when watering

Every Autumn I host a 'Come and Dig PCI' day in my garden, to share out plants to other gardens in my community. I checked my plants this week; new fans are starting to form, and new roots are short. I'll wait a week or two, until new roots are more than an inch long. 

There are exceptions; one variety has long white roots and could be divided now, but it will tolerate moving in a few weeks. The seedling PCI can be planted anytime from now until early November. They are much tougher than fan sections, which is why growing PCI from seed is so successful for many gardeners. Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris will hold its seed exchange from 1 November to the end of the year, so now is the time to be thinking about what species and hybrids you'd like to grow in your garden from seed. 

New white roots, this PCI is ready for a new home.

For western gardeners, Autumn is the best time to plant many native plants, not just Pacifica Iris. Trees, shrubs, perennials, ferns and grasses all do well if planted now (late September to early November), as the weather cools and moisture arrives from the Pacific Ocean over western North America. This gives the plants a jump on growth for the coming year by establishing good root systems first, with much less water use now and in coming years.