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Post by Kimby on Aug 6, 2020 13:44:50 GMT
I lucked into a bagful of Iris divisions and am dreaming of clumps of pretty irises blooming in my rock garden at the lake next summer.
Normally our local Iris Society holds an event and sells the divisions from dozens of varieties of bearded irises in their demonstration gardens. But because of the pandemic cancelling such “events”, they were just GIVING them away! They even provided paper bags to carry them away.
I came away with a dozen and a half iris rhizomes, each with leaves trimmed and marked with a Sharpie on the leaves with the varietal name. I googled the 4 varieties I got (3-5 of each), and found photos of two-toned flowers in a rainbow of colors including “Celebration Song” (pink/apricot), “Willamette Mist” (lilac/white), “Pink Boogie” (pink/blue), and “Cimarron Trail” (yellow/rose). Plus a few unlabeled escapees that had been dug out between the designated varietal clumps. Such fanciful names, inducing visions of garden glory in the future.
I swung by the garden center and got a large bag of compost and a sack of bulb food and will take it all up to the lake soon and plant them where I used to have perennials that the deer and voles gradually decimated, leaving vacancies for irises. My neighbor at the lake has grown irises successfully, so maybe this will be the solution to my garden woes.
If not, it hasn’t cost me much. BTW, Iris catalogs show tall bearded iris going for $8 each, so my haul saved me over $130.
I was unable to resist the perennials section at the garden center, though, and picked up a large Monarda (bee balm or horse mint), a low creeping pink-flowering thyme, and a purple-flowered Russian Sage, species that shouldn’t be too appealing to deer or voles, if they can survive the harsh conditions and short growing season at 6400’ elevation.
Hope springs eternal!
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 6, 2020 14:55:58 GMT
We'll at least find out by next spring if the deer find them delicious.
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Post by bjd on Aug 6, 2020 16:26:37 GMT
What luck, Kimby. I bought some irises online a couple of years ago but was not impressed with them when they finally bloomed. It's true that the two-coloured ones are really nice.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 6, 2020 17:09:24 GMT
That is lucky. Should be a great show!
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 6, 2020 17:28:37 GMT
Can iris bulbs be planted in all seasons?
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Post by Kimby on Aug 6, 2020 18:44:26 GMT
From what I’ve read, irises can be divided in July. The cut ends of the rhizomes need to be allowed to dry to a “callous” before planting shallowly.
I don’t know what the season for planting is, but in colder climates you want to plant early so they have time to get established before winter.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 19:00:03 GMT
Kimby, I envy your iris haul. Their foliage is a nice place holder even when they are out of bloom. If a garden has lots of rounded forms, a few sword shapes break up the monotony.
The first time I divided irises I did it by the book. I won't go into all of it, but there were at least half a dozen steps. I carefully planted a few patches of each color and threw the rest on the compost. My husband insisted on saving them. He put them in a wheelbarrow and dumped them in piles along the lane. A waste of time, I told him. But next year, guess where the big show of irises was.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 7, 2020 4:57:51 GMT
Congratulations on that wonderful cache of irises, Kimby! Breeze ~ ain't it always the way?
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Post by bjd on Aug 11, 2020 11:47:42 GMT
I spent some time this morning cutting off the faded agapanthuses and then pulled out a ton of crocosmias/montbretias. I planted a couple of packets of bulbs 3 years ago and they just invaded and multiplied. So jammed together that they killed anything nearby and this year most of them didn't even bloom. Besides which, orange is not my favourite colour, so I had put some near lavender thinking it would look nice. Couldn't even see the lavender this year.
I still have one group to remove but it's 30° outside so I'll wait. And does anyone know about pentstemons? I discovered them recently, planted some and the first year they did really well, grew like mad and lasted for months. Now several have just dried up. Are they not long-lasting perennials?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 11, 2020 18:46:55 GMT
does anyone know about pentstemons? casimira
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Post by bjd on Aug 11, 2020 19:28:44 GMT
does anyone know about pentstemons? casimiraI'll wait until she reads this then. Thanks, Bixa.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 11, 2020 19:44:33 GMT
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Post by fumobici on Aug 11, 2020 20:34:18 GMT
I love my crocosmias (I think the taxonomists have put montbresia to rest), I've got an orange cloud of them outside my window and I get to watch—and hear— the hummingbirds feed and get into fights. I also love pentstemons but they usually peter out after a couple of years for me here.
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Post by casimira on Aug 11, 2020 21:37:34 GMT
BJD: Penstemons of which there are a gazillion cultivars of, much like salvias, like, need, good drainage so, if there's any way you can create a raised bed for them they will be happy. They grow well in part sun/sun. The drainage is the most important as they like a drier soil. I've seen some here that have naturalized but I believe them to be a species penstemon, P. laxiflorus, a lovely lavender color. The cultivar/hybrid types have a whole range of colors to choose from but I have had better success with the white and the lavender species. Good luck!!
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Post by bjd on Aug 12, 2020 6:54:35 GMT
Thanks, Casimira. The soil here drains really well so I don't think that's the problem. Maybe they just don't last very long, or else they don't like being divided up. A couple of them grew so well that they took over the space so I dug them up and moved them.
Mine are mostly dark red. If any more die I'll replace them with salvias next year.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 12, 2020 15:14:39 GMT
Congratulations on that wonderful cache of irises, Kimby! Now I just have to get them in the ground. Unlike some on here, I don’t really enjoy the “dirt-under-the-fingernails” part of gardening. But bulbs are my favorites because they return year after year, with little effort on my part.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2020 15:18:33 GMT
But dirt-under-the-fingernails is gardening!
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Post by Kimby on Aug 12, 2020 15:45:38 GMT
That’s why I’m seldom on this thread! Maybe I need to hire a gardener for a few hours...
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Post by bjd on Aug 12, 2020 16:03:51 GMT
I usually wear gardening gloves but still end up with black fingernails.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 12, 2020 23:47:59 GMT
My garden is a rock garden, and it sometimes seems to grow more rocks than garden!
I certainly have a healthy crop of grass to eliminate if not eradicate each season, and a new bumper crop of gophers and voles might be my greatest gardening “success”.
Sad. The rocks are nice, though...
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 13, 2020 7:53:18 GMT
At the moment I want to rip it all out and start again...
As we head towards autumn and some of the flowering plants are over I want to get in and cut back, normally I'd be going to garden centres picking up stuff to fill the gaps. Havent been to a garden centre since March and with the way things are going here I'm unlikely to get to one until next year! At least it means that I might be less cavalier about chucking plants and just try moving them...or at least popping them in pots to get through winter...then I can reassess in the spring.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 14, 2020 0:22:34 GMT
Well, it took all day, but I finally got the 3 perennials and 6 clumps of irises planted. Very tiring work as deep rooted grasses had taken over the 20 or so planting sites I created among the rocks 8 or 9 years ago.
My first perennials looked so pretty, but were decimated by voles the 2nd summer and I’ve been battling voles ever since. My one noteable success is a yellow-flowered Lily with dense grass-like foliage, and one of three sagebrush plants.
I experimented with lining the planting holes with 1/4” hardware cloth to discourage root-chomping, but still lost almost all of my perennials. In the interim, grasses took over and grew inside the hardware cloth cages, sending their sturdy roots through the mesh and locking the baskets into the soil. I had to practically destroy them to get them out so I could break up the soil and amend it with compost and bulb food.
I definitely got dirt under my fingernails today! And I have really sore arm muscles....not sure this is enjoyable. I’ll decide when I see how well they survive and if they thrive. I’ve done my best.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2020 1:05:04 GMT
Cheery, do you not want to wait until things go to seed? Boring, yes, but a way to use the time that would have been ordinarily used for nicer autumn fixups.
I'm impressed, Kimby! Getting those wire things out had to have been an obnoxious task.
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Post by mich64 on Aug 14, 2020 3:44:00 GMT
I hope your hard work proves successful Kimby!
We have voles/moles every spring, there are little trenches everywhere! We bought a mole buster (can not remember the actual name brand) that emits a beep that annoys them so that they move on. We have been using them for about 4 years now (one on the top lawn and one on the lawn down by the lake) and they actually work. My husband dug a hold in each lawn and the unit (battery operated) is put in the hole and covered over. Might be something you could put in your garden?
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Post by Kimby on Aug 14, 2020 4:33:34 GMT
Ours are definitely voles, not moles. And I have been using 2 battery operated beepers and one solar-powered one, which has quit working.
My vole population does seem to be waning though - I have seen a weasel hanging out in the rockgarden. Maybe he’s the reason.
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Post by mich64 on Aug 14, 2020 4:53:40 GMT
I have seen a weasel hanging out in the rockgarden. Maybe he’s the reason. That makes sense Kimby! I think the voles feed on slugs? I remember my husband buying something called nematodes? which I think helped get rid of the slugs which helped get rid of the voles. One thing that I am surprised we do not get are the deer eating all of our hostas plants, we must have at least 2 dozen of them throughout our gardens and the deer have not found them, considering I realistically live in the forest, maybe just enough dogs around.
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Post by mossie on Aug 14, 2020 7:10:55 GMT
What can work with moles etc are the little childrens windmills which one gets at the seaside. The best ones come on a metal stick, just stick them in the ground where you suspect the moles to go and the little vibration they set up keeps the moles away.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 14, 2020 13:16:42 GMT
Moles and voles are entirely different critters. And voles are by far worse for gardens. Moles are ratsized tunnel-dwellers that eat grubs. Voles are mouse-sized plant-eaters that hang out in areas of tall grass. You would think they were a mouse except for their very short (2cm) tails. What works for moles doesn’t necessarily work for voles. I think I’ll have to hope the weasel has a family and they all stick around. Or try to find some predator urine to anoint my plantings with. www.thespruce.com/vole-control-getting-rid-of-voles-2131148
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Post by bjd on Aug 14, 2020 14:26:54 GMT
Voles are cute in children's books.
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Post by mich64 on Aug 14, 2020 16:50:41 GMT
What can work with moles etc are the little childrens windmills which one gets at the seaside. The best ones come on a metal stick, just stick them in the ground where you suspect the moles to go and the little vibration they set up keeps the moles away. Very interesting Mossie! I will have to see if I can find some of those. What works for moles doesn’t necessarily work for voles. I think I’ll have to hope the weasel has a family and they all stick around. Or try to find some predator urine to anoint my plantings with. Thank you Kimby, I did not know this!
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