starting over

I am about to pull up the rest of my iris and begin a new bed in a totally unrelated place.

This spot is sunny and has had nothing but grass there for a long, long time - maybe since the house was built. How do I go about preparing this bed for planting iris that I move from the beds where they currently are....?

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Is there some reason that you absolutely HAVE TO move those irises right now? If not, I strongly advise you to wait until next year to relocate them. It is extremely late to be disturbing irises in a cold winter area. Bearded irises should have *at least* 6 weeks to root into a new location before the first frost. Do you have that long before your first anticipated frost? If not, you may end up losing some or many of the irises you dig this late.

If you wait until next year, that'll give you plenty of time to kill off the existing grass and weeds without backbreaking labor or toxic chemicals. You can simply cover the new planting area with black plastic now and leave it in place until a few weeks before you're ready to move the irises next summer. The plastic will smother and kill the weeds and grass. Then all you'll have to do to get it ready for planting is till up the area and add any necessary amendments/fertilizers about 3 weeks before planting.

Laurie