There’s A Time-Warp in My Garden

By Vanessa Spady

My blog updates and my actual gardening progress are a bit out of step, so this post is about the fun we had planting our first set of rhizomes way back in October. I encourage you to read it, even though, since this part of the process was both fun to do and funny to read about.

Although I work, and have six dogs, eleven sheep and an orange cat (orange cat owners know what that means) I somehow manage to spend the bulk of my time gardening. I do this by choice, and on days like the day I am about to tell you all about, I garden instead of all the things I should be doing. (Note: if anyone can tell me the four-letter word equivalent for “should” I’ll use that instead.)

I have two forms of proof that I spent the bulk of that weekend in the garden. First, the inside of my house could convince you that border collies have opposable thumbs, and second, I was finally making visible progress on our iris project. While I dream of coming home to a beautifully clean home and a delicious, fresh-cooked meal, it turns out—to my surprise—that I don’t have a wife. Normally, my utterly darling husband steps up and makes a huge dent in the household chores, but he was out of town that weekend, and so I came home to the mess I’d made the day before, after a long day in the garden... (Honey, did I mention how much I appreciate you? Consider this a second reminder that you’re the best.)

So, now it’s 9:30 at night, I’m eating from-the-freezer stir-fry, and having just unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher, I can now sit down and gush and crow and preen over my garden photos (none of which show the true measure of the accomplishment I feel!). I’m that delightful combination of excited and bushed, which is a nice way to wrap up the weekend. And I get to share my progress photos with you, which makes it much more fun. But first, of course, I have to tell you what got done!

From previous posts, know you that I’d cleared an area of the yard with a gentle slope for our great planting endeavor. I also procured (donated!) kiddie pools, tires, and pallets. Drip irrigation materials are on hand, and the rhizomes have all arrived (bought online, and from the San Fernando Valley Iris Society, who are just the loveliest people around). Six yards of very nice loamy, amended soil was delivered. So, no more obstacles, right?

P.S. Whomever came up with the expression “dirt cheap” has never had a dump-truck load of it delivered to their house.

“Hooray!” I exclaimed. “I can start planting now!”

But, that was premature. Because, you know, I’m not just going to stick them in the beds willy-nilly. There has to be a plan! A grand scheme! An over-arching concept! Right? I mean, I’m starting from bare dirt in about an acre of land. This is my big chance to design something amazing, and brilliant. Something that will end up in high-end gardening magazines, and be the first result when you search “gorgeous iris garden” and also be the ideal for all future iris lovers across the globe. I can’t just stick them in a kiddie pool and call it genius! There must be A Plan!

This, friends, is where the magic of gardening begins to ebb away, and the practical realities of being a Type-A overachiever with tendencies towards the grandiose starts to inhibit the actual gardening part of having a garden. I kid you not, there are probably a dozen steps between the dirt arriving, and the first iris rhizome getting planted in that dirt. I’ve had a few sips of wine, so it’s starting to be amusing to me...feel free to laugh along with me.

The good news (for me) is that in addition to being Type-A, I’m also very practical. I realized that I was not quite ready to design the most stunning garden of all time, and that just having a successful growing season was an excellent goal for this first planting year. Sufficiently self-chastened, I took some (more) advice from my sister, and created a visual catalog of all the iris I ordered, as well as all the named iris I already own. It turns out to be approximately 95 named iris. (The hundreds and hundreds of iris with missing names have earned their own post, so we’ll talk about those another time.) Luckily for me, I used to be an art director and graphic designer, and I very quickly assembled an excellent and clever (if I do say so myself) method of creating my very own iris catalog. Arrange-as-you-like printed envelopes:

This way, I can lay them out to create optimal color combinations without dragging my computer around the garden. Or worse, relying on my memory...

Any tags that come with the rhizome go into the envelope. I feel so clever. 
Of course, my goals for the garden are different from most commercial growers’ goals and requirements. I could have just planted them alphabetically! Or by type (“Tall beardeds on the left, folks, and intermediates on the right...”), but I created a slightly more challenging rubric of by-season and by complimentary-color combination. Which is to say, all the early bloomers are together, and then arranged in color combinations that enhance and support the beauty and uniqueness of each variety. Then the mid-season bloomers are together, and the late bloomers are together, etc, all arranged by a totally subjective and probably not-entirely-perfect color-enhancement and combination that, now that I’m typing it, sounds almost silly.

But, truly, a lot of thought went into which iris should be planted near which other iris. In my personal yard, I have what I call my yellow garden. I have combined many of my favorite yellow and yellow-ish plants in one area, and they all bloom their own variety of yellows, creating a really lovely and inviting spectacle. But I noticed when iris-shopping that often all the white iris (for example) look indistinguishable when they are planted together. There are subtle differences, of course, but the eye wearies of all white, or all blue, or all deep purple. And creating contrasts, and appealing color combinations really boosts the value of some of the more average or mundane blooms. A yellow bloom loses it’s zing next to a similar yellow bloom. But either of them in contrast with a vibrant purple (or reds, or pinks) become a vital part of a visually exciting tableau. Yeah, I just said that!

So, I printed out all the named iris stats onto envelopes, in full color. Then I separated them into bloom season (early, mid, late). And then began the fun of deciding which combinations of rhizomes should be created, and into which kind of bed (tires, raised beds, or kiddie pools) they should be planted. Now, I am going to toot my own horn again, and say that normally I am very very good at estimating how much time a task will take. And normally, I will brag about how that is one of my superpowers. Because of that, I will happily confess that I grossly, massively, and completely underestimated how long it would take me to create the layouts for the beds.

I figured it would take about an hour. It took closer to four. That was with Chris’ help. And that was after I had printed the envelopes, broken them into bloom-season groups, and made a preliminary layout. I was utterly unable to make the process faster, and I suddenly understood the appeal of planting them in alphabetical order.

When I woke up that morning at seven, I thought I would have everything planted by noon. Looking back, that is so naively adorable! I wrapped at sundown, because I still needed hardware and knew I wouldn’t get back before dark. Also, the dogs called and were threatening to see what they could whip up from leftovers and whatever was in the freezer... I had to call it a day. All the mid-season bloomers are planted in the raised beds, and the late-bloomers are the next to go in.

The great news is that I think we have a very attractive layout for each bed, and we will be able use all three types of beds for this test planting. I painted the tires for the early bloomers (because black tires in our climate will simply bake the roots of any rhizomes), so they finally got planted, too. Then I finished the drip system installation, and then... well, if you garden, you know there will always be something else. It will probably be weeding. I’m convinced the runoff will create beautiful green stripes of weeds in downhill rivulets from our beds... and then the gophers will really have something to think about!

Before that, though, here is a pictorial of how that first day commenced:

It started out hot, so we set up in the shade. You can see our magical raw materials: tires, raised beds, and lots of rhizomes. A thousand thanks to Chris for her help and delightful company. 

You don’t have to guess that it’s genius at work when you see we’re using the hood of the car to lay out our magic envelopes and create the masterful final designs (cough, cough).

I was pretty convinced we were going to need dozens of beds and walkways for the all the iris I ordered... and ha-ha, uh, no. This is pretty much the final configuration: early bloomers in the tires, midseason bloomers in the raised beds, and late bloomers in the kiddie pools. This all the room it takes to plant approximately 140 rhizomes. Yeah, I was surprised, too!

This was the trial layout before the tires were painted. The final layout is pretty much just like this preliminary version.

This is where the magic happened that first day. We laid out weed-blocking fabric, and then on top of that, we rolled out fine-grade wire mesh, to discourage the below-ground critters from coming up into the beds from underneath. I use the word “discourage” realizing they may come through anyhow, but at least we made it challenging!

You, too, can work for nine hours and have this to show for it! But, finally, rhizomes in the soil. Once the layout was in the database, we removed all the lovely tags, so the plants can just look natural. And relaxed. Like me.

There has been so much progress since these shots, so keep your eyes peeled for the next update. I can’t wait to share it all with you! And I keep my promises: here is a lovely photo of Doctor Who, a dynamite performer that I just love.

'Doctor Who' (George Sutton, R. 2009). Seedling U-740. TB, 37" (94 cm), Midseason to late bloom. Standards and style arms chinese yellow (RHS 20D); Falls beetroot purple (71A), chinese yellow and beetroot burst pattern; beards spanish orange; ruffled; slight sweet fragrance. 'Tropical Delight' X 'Snowed In'. Sutton 2010. Honorable Mention 2012.

Winter in the Garden: To trim leaves on PCIs or not?

Kathleen Sayce

A couple of years ago, I posted a comment about having used a dry sunny break in the weather to clip back iris leaves and clean up the garden. Several people reprimanded me for doing so, saying I was taking away these plants' capacity to photosynthesize in coming weeks until the new shoots came into full growth. With PCIs, sometimes that is true, and sometimes it is not. 

PCI "Clarice Richards' stays green all winter; brown leaves are tugged/clipped off in late winter or early spring. 

A storm called an Atmospheric River blew through this week; regionally these are called Pineapple Express storms, which bring warm air, high winds and heavy rain. About 11 inches fell in 3 days, ending with more than 5 inches of rain yesterday, a day so wet that salmon could just about swim in the air instead of the streams. Today the sun came out for the first time in nearly a week.

I took photos in the garden of the "photosynthesis-deprived plants" that I trimmed back that fall. My focus in past years for clipping was plants that had brown leaves. Many PCIs have mixed genetic heritages from most of the species in this group, and the degree of browning, if any, varies with those genes.  

Iris innominata has almost completely browned off by mid January. With snow, it will go completely dormant.  

A typical PCI clump in the winter garden, PCI 'Finger Pointing', has a few green shoots and weeds, and a lot of brown. 

Which groups stay the greenest, and can be left alone throughout the winter?  Iris douglasiana-derived hybrids.

Iris douglasiana selections and hybrids with considerable "Doug-blood" stay green all winter long. A few brown leaves are tugged off in late winter or early spring. 

Which groups go the brownest, so that by early winter, the only green leaves are the new shoots?  Joe Ghio's hybrids, and others from his mixed species pool of gene stock. Also, Iris innominata/I. thompsonii plants go brown by midwinter.  

Ghio hybrids typically brown off by early winter. The only green to be seen is weeds, and a few tiny new shoots.

Which groups go completely dormant and lose leaves?  Iris tenax and I. hartwegii. These species' leaves vanish by midwinter. 

Iris tenax vanishes underground by midwinter. Old leaves and winter cress plants will come out when I clean up the oak leaves and spruce cones in a few weeks. 

Spring is coming! Among all the brown leaves and debris, I saw several new shoots on most of my plants. A few have died; one that I though died last fall came back with several new shoots, and the rest have those small green fans we love to see in early spring. 

Now, if the weather stays dry for a few days, I can take my annual soil sample, and start pruning and tidying the garden beds. 

IRISES, the Bulletin of the AIS - Winter 2016 Edition

By Andi Rivarola

A warm welcome to those who are seeing the cover of yet another wonderful issue of IRISES, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society. The image below is a majestic view of the Kasperek's Zebra Gardens and iris fields in Utah, photographed by Melissa Hanson, Winner of the 2015 AIS Photography Contest, category "In a Field or Home Garden."

The Winter 2016 issue of the AIS Bulletin is now available for online viewing within the Emembers section of the AIS website. Note: to access this area of the website you must have a current AIS Emembership. AIS Emembership is separate from the normal AIS membership. Please see the Electronic Membership Information area of the AIS website for more details.

In this edition of IRISES, meet the new AIS President, Gary White on a beautifully detailed introductory article on pages 6 — 8. 

Learn why Fred Kerr, the creator of beautiful 'Queen's Circle,' won the 2015 AIS Hybridizer Medal, as announced on page 9.

Read about news from different iris organizations on Section Happenings by Jody Nolin, on page 12.  Don't miss news from the Japanese Iris Society, the Spuria Iris Society and the newest group to join the ranks, the Novelty Iris Society. 

Riley Probst reports on pages 15 and 16 about the 2015 AIS Tall Bearded Symposium, some wonderful statistics and lastly all the results, which are always interesting. 

The 2015 AIS Photo Contest Winners are recapped with gorgeous photographs, individual iris shots, irises in garden settings and irises and people. Don't miss them, they are on pages 29 — 33. 

Always inspiring, Remember Friends is a section that provides us with a glimpse on the life of those irisarians now gone, on pages 34 – 36. 

"A world renowned iris garden can be found in a bustling Northern New Jersey suburban community.  A stone’s throw from New York City, the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens located at 475 Upper Mountain Avenue, Upper Montclair, NJ is a repository for fifteen hundred plus varieties in all iris classification." ~ Mike Lockatell 

We hope you are attending the 2016 National Convention in Newark, NJ on May 23 —28. In case you have not seen the registration form online we're happy to share it on page 37. Some information on the convention, such as hotel and gardens are on page 38. And, a fantastic article in beautifully crafted words and photos by Mike Lockatell on what you will see at The Presby Memorial Iris Gardens, called "Presby Defies TIme," on pages 39 — 41. Also, Paul Gossett describes for us on page 42 beautiful Glenara Gardens in Upstate Central New York. If the word and photographs inspire you please join us in the Spring. 

"The incredible progress in U.S. iris breeding from the early Twentieth Century to the present comes alive in dazzling shapes, colors and patterns for young and old to enjoy each year."  ~ Presby Defies Time

Future convention dates, plus important AIS Board meeting times and locations are on page 55.

Lastly, a great picture from the AIS 2015 Photo Contest that deserves your attention. 

There's a lot more to see and read in this edition of IRISES, either in digital or print formats. If you are an AIS member know that you will receive the print edition soon (it's in the hands of the Post Office), or if you are an e-member, then that version is already available online as mentioned above. 

Happy gardening!

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.