GardenArtist Posted September 2015
Gardening as therapy.
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Are these bearded or Siberian irises?
They can also be early, mid season or late bloomers.
Sandy soil could make a difference; Instead of fertilizing them, you might try adding some well composed cow manure, sold in bags in garden centers. You can add it by hoeing out a circle several inches away from the iris, digging down maybe 5-6" and working the manure in. If it still has an odor, just spread it out on top of the soil and let it cure a bit before working it in.
One way you can tell if they'll be blooming properly is to dig up one plant, carefully and tenderly, and put it up in a deep container with your sandy soil mixed with good potting soil). It's kind of like the canary in the coal mine.
If it blooms and the others don't, you'll know something is amiss, either the placement of the bulbs, soil, or maybe some other unknown factor.
In the 70's T.V series, KUNG FU", David Carradine was called 'grasshopper'.
Maybe I don't want to be in charge of life and death.
Maybe I will just start to talk to the grasshoppers, ask them what they like to eat, give them that as a trade off to not eat my favorite plants.
I know that not all plants come with proper identification or instructions. A poster on a gardening forum I visit bought a plant at one of the big box stores, planted it, and was threatened with legal action by code enforcement because the plant was actually an invasive plant iner state. It had been mislabeled by wherever the big box store got its plants.
If I post a link with a "dot com", it'll will get truncated. So Google "Schreiner's irises, planting guide", and click on the first hit "Grow Bearded Iris...". Then click on "planting bearded iris".
(If you really want to be mesmerized by the variety of irises they have, click on "online catalog".
I've bought my irises from Scheiner's - always very, very top quality tubers.
Their guides recommend planting 12 - 24" apart, with the rhizomes "laying down" (horizontally). There's a photo which includes a planting layout.
I'd be tempted to dig up the rhizomes, spread them out, and plant them less deep in the soil. Sandy soil could as I wrote be a major factor as well, especially if they're planted close together and too deep. Too much stress and competition and not enough nutrition.
Lol. Just joking. Was wondering just how crazy this could get with the full moon. Can anybody send chocolate? Fortunately, we have Garden Artist to advise about the Iris plantings. Me, I would be grateful there is a green plant growing at all, and wait for April showers to bring May flowers. It is colder up North, so it takes longer. How many did you plant? I forgot, but it was lots, right?
It is funny that gardeners are trying to be one with nature and yet we are continually at war with the bits of nature we don't want in out gardens, like weeds, squirrels and grasshoppers.
Nuke 'em Send, or cover those bougainvillea for a little while until the plague abates.
'It is funny that gardeners are trying to be one with nature and yet we are continually at war with the bits of nature we don't want in out gardens, like weeds, squirrels and grasshoppers. "
Yes, how true and how sad, and city code enforcement departments must take the responsibility for much of this, especially the lawn height and weeds laws.
As one of the gardeners I know writes, "weeds are just plant in the places we don't want them to be." It's amazing how Native Americans, colonists and earlier peoples found uses for plants even if they weren't edible or beautiful.
But history has shown that people don't always seek moderate or accommodating solutions, but rather seek to control, especially to control nature.
I'm surprise researchers haven't figured out a way to control the weather, although I'm sure some of them are trying, somewhere, somehow.
It reflects a lot about human beings and our adaptability that we've become so far from learning to live with nature.
meet me back here in 5 years and we can talk about cherry wine .
kidding . i wouldnt trade off cherry cobbler for booze . we'll make booze out of fish heads or something ..
out at the farm , " doc " is dead set on raising bees . the farm foreman claims to be allergic to bees and is a little apprehensive about it . im not . i get higher than cooter brown from a honey bee sting . i dont deliberately screw with em but i dont avidly avoid them either . we'll raise bees , i dont care either way .
hubby needs to learn to roll with the flow . if i could choose between a drunk wife or a sober wife , s*it , this sentence doesnt even require completion ..
BTW .
wines sweetened with honey instead of cane sugar are called meads . they require so much less guatamalan slave labor ..
im way ahead of doc . hes thinking toast , bacon and honey . in my mind ive already cooked the mead into 151 proof lightning .
go BEES !!
It must be survival training, yeah, that's it.
its just a plan " b " in case we can no longer coerce guatamalan slave labor .
plan " c " is mexican and american drug war " prison " labor .
plan " d " is yobamas dumb a@#s smashing sugar beets with a blunt stick at gunpoint .
we need sweeteners to make booze . im pretty negotiable as to how these sweeteners are brought to market ..
i helped a customer mow her lawn once -- mowed down her snap peas . i wouldnt know a snap pea from a plywood tree , or care , for that matter .
Now, my son has a nice green lawn where he lives in SoCal. How nice that he gets a nice green lawn with "our" water. Yes I am against the Delta tunnels. I k ow what happened to Owens Valley.
Other natural weed killers are pour boiling.g water on weeds, a mixture of salt and water and plain old vinegar. These are best for use in cracks in driveways a d walkways because too much of it in a flower bed would affect t Ph levels in the. Soil.
Mulch also helps to block sunlight from reaching weed seeds preventing.g germination. Spreading newspaper over the soil works too if you don't mind the look of newspapers spread all over your garden.
They're almost like a little stream of blue flowers, extending almost 50 feet across the garden.
The Squills have been the harbingers of spring, along with crocuses, for the last several years. I planted some in my father's yard years ago; they've now spread out into the lawn to create a lovely, almost Monet-like palette of royal blue blended with the fresh green of spring-revived grass. Dad gets compliments on them from neighbors and delivery people.
I'm thinking of gathering the seeds, about the size of chick peas, and planting them in containers to put around the front of the house for some early spring cheer next year.
What's blooming in YOUR yards?
As to the grass issue, my grass typically dies back in August but is resurrected when the Fall rains come. Do you think your grass is really dead?
I wish mine would die permanently; it would be a lot easier to convert it to ground cover.