My new Iris bed.......

Is FINISHED!

When I began the summer, I was planning on building a new Iris bed in my side yard. It was to be located where a maple tree had died over the winter. When the maple tree, and a massive honey locust were finally removed by the tree company a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly had a different spot for my iris bed: along the west side of my garage. Removing the honey locust that was too close to my house, was killing all my hosta that were growing alongside the garage because it was no longer a shaded bed.

So I changed all my plans, and have spent several evenings and all weekend working on this. Transplanting the hosta, amending the soil, then transplanting most of the iris, and it's finally done! There are still some iris to transplant, they are growing in with my daylilies which are still blooming. And there are other iris that I need to verify their ID after they bloom next spring (they were crowded in one of my beds)

But now my iris should be very happy. This bed is affected by the overhang of the house, so they won't get too much water. They will also get some nice afternoon sun. And there are no water loving daylilies planted in this bed. I even made sure to space them 20-24 inches apart.

This photo is an in progress one.

And this photo is after I finished planting all the iris I can for the moment. The bed itself is not completed, the area at the top is still shaded, and still has hosta, but now I am going to enlarge it, and continue the brick edging. It is very possible I won't get that part competed until next spring, we will see. I also have to figure out how to treat a Ligularia that I moved, that is suffering from transplant shock. In the upper corner you can also see some of the wood from that massive tree that used to shade that side of the house.

But I am thrilled, because my goal was to complete it before the county fair begins in 10 days, and I actually did! The last bed I made, took me 6 weeks longer than I planned..... ~Jan

They look lonely. How about some nice weeds?

Give them a couple of days, the weeds will show up. I am sure an "all call" has gone out on the weed locator network! ~Jan

Looking VERY NICE, Jan! Just think of how many more iris you can get & have the room to plant them when they arrive! That always seems to be the challange here.