Take a peek at a ton of iris

Just thought you guys might get a kick out of seeing what this looks like here now. Either waiting to be trimmed, or planted

D

A different shot

D

Makes me tired just looking at it.

Love your windbreak/ property line.

That is break between the house and the commerical field. Image each bag holds about 20 iris or more and there are 900+ bags there to be planted by 10-1-09!

D

Uggh, I've been working solo for about 8+ hours each day doing plant back in my garden. I'm only half finished. I can't imagine the man hours you supervise and cover yourself too. Plus dealing with your's and your DH's health issues.

Amazing!

This was Monday morning and the rough placement was ready for the bed where the Dykes medalists will hang out for a few years. The raised bed also contains medalists which I had planted the previous day. I have now completed all the way around the garden to where the nose of the red van is with plants. The center bed is still incomplete.

Edited for spelling.

This message was edited Sep 17, 2009 5:44 AM

OH Lordy! My aching back! Do you dig and replant every fall? Makes me glad I do all my retail irises in buckets.

I still haven't gotten all my irises in beds dug out,cleaned up,bed ammended and replanted. It'd help if it quit raining(since last Sat and some chance up until Mon). I've been doing a few each fall for the past 3 yrs and no where near finished....so I can't wrap my brain around doing that many at once.

P

Have just 2 people to help Roni, usually only one but with the bum knee, I can not get down on the knee and planting bending over gets to after about 4 hours.

D

Oh my! I thought I had a big project planting 65 TBs. I can't even imagine what it would be like planting all of those.

I need to print that picture, and look at it every time I buy another iris!! LOL Happy Thursday BIF's!!! pic Bamboo Shadows

Yup it is a job...just planting back the TB of C trimmed thru M....

Hope we can get DEF in ground today GHIJK tomorrow.

D

Wow, I'm still amazed that you get out of bed. After the first 8 hours my body was screaming. Now I just keep saying if the rain holds and Denise can do it, so can I! You so inspire me.

Roni

It is necessary, plus I soak in the hot tub and bath for 30 minutes, it just MUST get done by the 1st come Heck or high water. Replanting D now

D

Finished E and now it is lunch...will plant F then he must till the compost in and then we can continue to plant. I will be trimming...oh the joys, but right now we are a little ahead of the game

D

Unbelievable Denise. If it was me you all would be buying flowers for the funeral LOL.

Wow Denise I do not know how you handle all of that work!!!

Now I know for sure why I never wanted to sell any of my plants. Not only is that a ton of irises, it's got to be 10 tons of work. Jezz, and I thought I had alot of work just trying to keep the weeds out of my iris and daylily plants.

D, when you have time can you explain what and how you use the onion bags for? I figure it's different named irises but then I'm also thinking it could be peoples orders??? Whatever you use them for it's an overwhelming sight to behold.
No wonder you need a new replacement. You could probably use hip replacement too. I'm worn out from just looking at all the work that must go into just that part of your iris business.

Thanks for the photos and enlightening information!
Happy Gardening, Marian

Dee--where can you get onion bags? We sometimes need them for the club iris sale & I don't know where to look. Take it as easy as you can. I know if have to get finished but you need to watch the knee. Don't sell anything later than S? Easier on you.

Lucy
If you know any onion wholesale company in the area, contact them, as they usually will sell you the bags at a whole lot cheaper

Marian
I use the onion bags because it allows the iris to breath and do not get near the aphids or anything on them at all when you have a mass of them up like this. These are all different varieties of iris.

When I do orders we have drying rakes in the barn, dry them, then we have one table with nursery trays, put all the a's in one and on and on, then as we pull an order, honey reads how many and what I need, I go thru the tray get the iris and once the order is pulled it is put on another table, when all the orders are pulled then I start to pack, we that the packing slip and as I put in the box, it is marked off, then if any missing or adding bonus that is packed as well, put the box with the packing slip after weighing them on another table, bring in all the invoice do the labels go back out tape the boxes put the labels, punch holes and continue until done.

Hope this give you idea of what it is like

Then we are planting the letter I and hope to get thru the M today!

D

You're amazing D. And obviously very organized, as I sure you have to be. Take care.
Laura

now I dont feel so bad ordering so many from ya, Dee! oh my oh my....and I thought I was bad on how many to plant....

No onion place near here; we are semi-rural, but MA farms are disappearing.

if the club wants to buy some, next time I am up there I will get some, they are .15 each and since they are light weight should not be expensive to ship Lucy

D

Cool, about 20? Let me know price.

OK, it will be after the surgery if that is OK, as just running out of time.

D

Fine, no hurry--digging is a long way off in this climate; try summer.

Thanks for sharing with us how you do everything D. That's a ton of work and yet I know you really love working with your irises and selling them. As for the onion bags I don't know how they can make them so cheap. I didn't know you could purchase anything for under 50 cents to a dollar. LOL

I just hope that you'll be back up and as good as new after your knee surgery. I'll also be glad when you can get off your feet and rest for awhile.

Hugs Marian

I will be off my feet for sure on the 6th and for quite a bit after that...I hate sitting.

These are used bags but 90% of them hold up for 2-5years...so for .15 each and me using them and not gentle at all it is a bargain for sure.

D

Hey D, I might want to get 26 of those bags from you later on and do my gardens in Alpha order. No wonder it takes me forever to find specific irises in my gardens. Nothing is in any kind of order. I just planted them as I got them and keep adding to the fields/rows. I figure 26 as that's the number of letters in the American Alphabet.

If I were to dig them all up. I could put all the A's in one bag and so forth, all the way through to Z. Then George could take the tractor and tille everything up and add some compost and horse poop. Then I would replant them in Alpha order. Makes tons of sense to me. So D. if you would sell me 26 I'd like to get them sometime after bloom time here next spring. What do you think???? It sounds like an excellent ideal right now, but by next spring I may have changed my mind. LOL Even though it would be ALOT of extra work.

Happy Gardening, Marian

Yeah I'll take a ton of Iris and can you have that delivered to my back yard....LOL

now, trina? in IL? you'd have your work cut out for ya! Dee's spent some bucks and some hours getting her field ready.

nah here we just dump in the ground and about every 5 to 7 years we have to go thin them out, that's about all the work irises take here...don't have to dig anything up for winter. just plant them and walk away and enjoy the show

that is all the work they would take here except as a commerical field and wanting to give the best to customers we do this either every year or every other year. Preferrable the first.

We planted r this AM and will plant S later.

D

I plant them carefully, but don't do much after, except divide them about every three years. They grow quickly in our sandy soil. I do need to water them a lot though, because of our sandy soil, but they are definietly not high maintainance.

D,
When you say you want to give the best to the customer (just learning here, not questioning method!!), does replanting so often give you healthier rhizomes or larger ones or ??? :)
Thanks,
Laura

Dee, sounds like, you're going to be done by your deadline! depending on the S's, there usually aren't many T-Z's, you may be done by tomorrow.

you still planning a girls day out before surgery?

but I wouldn't wont to sell them just keep the whole ton to myself...LOL I AM just kidding, that would be a nightmare to plant cause I have to do everything by hand and usually by myself

Kiddo I have one person helping me...and today have to go for pre op appt.

There are 83 varieites of S, half way thru it so will plant T and U today and the rest tomorrow.

I plant this way for bigger, healthier nicer rhizomes for the customers.

D

well I know who I will be ordering all my irises from in the future...so when do you start taking orders for next year?

trinawitch - go check out Snowpeak Irises on the web.

i will!
I guess I made admin mad again..I'm a weed so for today I should go play with the other weeds....sorry I got your flood photos thread locked