Irises: IRIS & DL. EXPERTS! Blank canvas: Show newbie some love?, 1 by Wandasflowers

Wandasflowers wrote:
want2bee is just angling for more iris. LOL Come on over girl & I'll dig you more iris & daylilies & perennials than you can carry. Time to clean the garden again!

I plant in rows: daylily, iris, other perennial, daylily iris, other perennial. I stagger the next row so the plants fall between the other row. My beds are anywhere from 8 foot to 20 foot deep and 30 foot to 60 foot long. Just really deep boprders.

I use alot of lilliums, phlox, clematis,canna, tall asters, mums, & such for the back rows to add height.

Middle rows hold snapdragons, sage,speedwell, coreopsis, zinnias, Siberiands,blackeyed susans,shorter phlox, tall sedum, perennial geraniums,shorter lilies, yarrow etc mixed in with the iris & daylilies.

Front rows have dwarf & Intermediate iris plus small daylilies, dwarf lilliums, coreopsis,dwarf asters,short geraniums,dwarf zinnias etc.

400 + spring bulbs are tucked in between the clumps of daylies & iris. The dying bulb foliage is covered by the daylily & other emerging foliage.
I plant for a color mix as well as color from April to October. A little tricky some years. I have putting ll my new iris on 4 inch high mounds & replanting the older clumps as I go. The raised mounds enable me to mulch the other flowers in the beds without risking rot in my iris.

I'm lazy. I don't water unless a plant is new--mulch holds in the rain. I hate to weed, so the mulch keep my beds clean.

I deadhead all my plants to keep unwanted seedlings from crowding out my cultivars.

After the iris bloom, I keep them trimmed & clean with plenty of air around them. One bed in June 2006.