Spring Cleanup who's with me?

Since my article on spring cleanup and borer control for TB irises was posted today (http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/832/), I decided I'd better get my tail out back to my own iris bed! It would be pretty pathetic after all if I adopted a "do as I say not as I do" attitude and failed to head off a potential iris borer invasion out there. I'm still recovering from a bug, so I worked slowly, but I got about half the iris area cleared away. :-)

I'm not sure what to do about the part of the bed where the groundcover has become pretty well established. I'm seeing how well irises will coexist with Lamium -- so far, so good. I think it's got a loose enough habit that air circulation around the rhizome isn't an issue. I'm going to clear it back from the clumps of iris a little... and I'll hope that borers haven't laid eggs in it! Well, I guess that's another reason to follow up with Grub-X (imidacloprid) next week.

Who else is out there with me, clearing away the winter debris and admiring the little spring sprouts?

(this is the iris in the thumbnail photo at the top of my article... after a little cleanup effort!)

Me! I have been removing dead leaves and weeds and taking inventory of what has survived and what hasn't. Almost everything made it I am delighted to say. Have you read any of the articles on getting rid of iris borer without pesticides? There have been some on this thread. I worry a lot about imidacloprid because it turns out to be a major suspect in the disappearance of the bees. I think if you search back on this thread you will find some articles about how to rid oneself of borers.
I am pruning fruit trees and cleaning up iris and other beds. I can't wait for flowers!

I'm with both of you. I've been out every nice day this winter and have cleared a few gardens with many more to go. No iris borer problems here. I know I had one in the past but got him/her before it destroyed the iris. They are messy to deal with!

Me. I read your article but thought to myself it'd have to wait until after we get back from a trip in a week. However, it turned out to be a beautiful day yesterday and I had a couple of hours so I thought why not. Just think how virtuous I'll feel when I get it done. Thanks, Jill, I appreciate the prod; it worked. And my iris thank you too.

Also, I'm very thankful I don't have any iris borer problems.

Betty

I linked to some of those discussions about imidacloprid in my article... and I also mentioned alternative methods, such as beneficial nematodes and running individual iris leaf blades between your fingers to squash any borer larvae within.

I think that since I'm applying a granular rather than a spray form of imidacloprid, it might be less likely to be a problem... at any rate, I have loads of bees. But you're right, it's important to consider alternatives and to make informed decisions about using pesticides -- and that's why I included all those links.

I'm feeling virtuous already, Betty, and I'm only about 1/3 of the way through my iris bed! LOL One of the best things was uncovering the little tufts of emerging foliage on the columbine plants that are interplanted with my irises -- and finding some new little columbine seedlings, too!

Ive gotta wait for the snow to melt.

It's safe to say that no borer eggs will be hatching with snow on the ground... ;-)

I think it's supposed to chill down here again this weekend, too.

Huh... I just checked the forecast, and I swear they've added 10 degrees to it since yesterday! Hooray! I'd send those 10 degrees up to you in MI if I could... :-) (LOL, that's a pretty safe offer for me to make, now, isn't it?)

so true. i dont have to many borer problems. A few each year usually.

sure you would:-) haha

It's 0 degrees here at the moment with plenty of snow still on the ground, so it'll be a while yet before I do any bed cleaning. I did, however, cut all of the iris foliage down to the ground last fall in my newly renovated smaller iris beds because the deer kept pulling up the new transplants. I had to cut off the remaining foliage just so the deer wouldn't have anything to grab. So those two beds won't need any cleaning this spring. All of the big beds will, though.

Laurie 0 degrees Brrrrr. I hope it warms up soon for you!

It's springtime here and I'm with you Jill, been cleaning my own yard all day. This weather motivates me.
Now the big iris garden, is full of weeds and can't get to them til next week...****sigh****
That garden is a mess but spring is so close that I have lots of irises blooming now. Yippeeee, spring!
Here's one of them I took this week, Helen K. Armstrong....please don't look at the weeds around her!

I think that's what my mom calls "Colt's Foot" -- it's too pretty to be a weed! Let's call it a "volunteer." LOL

Your iris is lovely! I'm hoping some more of mine will have their first blooms in my garden this spring. I've put in quite a few over the past couple of years... some from Weegy & other DGers, many from the local iris society's midsummer rhizome sale. :-)

I hope all of yours do well Jill. I
I am firing that "volunteer" next week!

Your pretty weed has had its day so you can say "goodbye" to it. Don't we all have more energy in the spring.

I wish I had this energy all year, spent from 10:00 til 3:00 cleaning my yard, but it sure looks nice! Fired all the "volunteers" here too. They've all met their match.

I've sort of been cleaning all winter. The weather here was so mild (we had a whole week in mid Dec of 79 degree weather!) that my iris have just kept going. I just pulled off the yellowed or crunchy leaves every so often. The ones I potted up in Aug/Sept look amazing. The ones I procrastinated with and planted out in Dec during that warm spell seem to be a bit further behind but I can understand that--I waited too long to get them in the ground.

Luckily I've never seen any borer damage or borers on my iris. Always a good reminder to keep your eyes out for them though.

I am cleaning up irises here and there as the snow melts. Our winter is still pretty cold but the little iris leaves are starting to grow. So I just pull away the old dead leaves and put them in the garbage. We don't have iris borers, but there are viruses that can live in decaying leaves -- at least so I hear. Anyhow they just look nicer without a lot of dead leaves around.

Hey Critter, just read your article and thanks for it! I've struggled with borers for a few years now. Mostly I have only addressed it by fall cleanup.

I haven't been able to get out yet for any spring work, as it's still cold and some snow/ice here. I generally try to be chemical-free in the garden though. The most I do is insecticidal soap. So I might try the nematodes this year. Sigh. Such a struggle.

The nematodes do look promising -- let us know how you make out with them!

I've already had to spray for leaf spot and fertilized my iris last week. Most of them are over a foot tall already. Leaf spot can be terrible here and make the garden look just horrible. I hate to use chemicals too but I've had to give up and treat it.

Doss, it's so weird for me to think about your iris being a foot tall when my whole yard is a chunk of ice! I've done some SERIOUS thinking this year about moving!!!!!

This is the iris bed that i have to redo this summer. Its gonna be a lot of digging, tilling and planting. My back hurts thinking about it.

How lovely! Redo? What are you doing with it? Digging & dividing, or something else entirely?

It's a lovely bed. I think I would just pull the weeds and let the irises be! But then, I am not a perfect house or yard keeper.

It is really overgrown now. The irises arent blooming well cus of it. I am going to dig in sections, amend the soil, divide the iris and replant in an organized fashion.

Very pretty bed flowrgirl. I'll bet that it will be even more beautiful when it's redone although the second year is always better.

Yes, I will have to sacrifice a year but no big deal. It doesnt bloom that well anyway right now. There is about 200 varieties in that bed but only up to 50 or so bloom each year.

Its begging for a transplant.

thanks for the compliments.

Three feet of snow are still on my iris beds and on the way to the Maine Iris Society meeting tonight I saw a pink Easter Bunny in a snow bank. Looked cheeful like the first promise of Spring around here in a long time. Your car would bottom out in the pot holes in the roads now.

My Mother and Husband won irises for door prizes tonight at the meeting and we watched slides or of the AIS Iris Convention of 2006. Maine Iris Society gave one of the younger members a chance to go to the 2008 one in Texas.

Decided we will have another photo contest this year, I will be getting a gift cert and catalog soon for winning the 2007 one in catagory 6. We got acquainted with others and decided who will visit which garden in the summer.

Got snowed out in Feb so they had more door prizes than normal to make up for it. John White is working on creating a yellow japanese iris that sounds beautiful. Mom won his Dirigo Pink Milestone as her door prize and we are thrilled.

I hope he doesn't mind this--John is in his 90s and had won the JI Payne Medal for Dirigo Pink Milestone a couple of years ago.

John will be 92 in April. Doing quite well and close to creating a yellow enstata. Hope it appears for him this summer. The parents have yellow on both sides so it is only a matter of a generation or two before it should appear.

The Payne award for Dirigo Pink Milestone was won Aug 2007 and he has studied with McEwen for years. I did not realize the chemical they used to make tets was from a crocus. Will learn more as we visit the gardens and listen to John and Ted speak. Got explained to last night that the pod in always first and the pollen second when one lists the parents.

I am just a beginner with hybridizing. Will try this summer to cross something with something and follow the directions but it will have to be outside wintering over for Mom will not allow irises in the refrigerator. Grin.

Don't worry, we always winter our seeds outside. The boxes are in a trench, with screening over them to prevent critters from eating them. After Christmas tree boughs go on top which takes care of them. Probably more germination if wintered in fridge, but that is work and hybridizing is supposed to be a hobby.Chad Harris of WA is also working on yellow JI so soon there will be a choice--& crossing to each other.

Thanks for the encouragement.

How deep does the trench have to be? Are the boxes above ground or below under a layer of soil? I have plenty of fir boughs that come off our trees in storms to use and the screening sounds like an excellent idea for we do have porcupines and squirrels and deer that seem to go for other bulbs as well. We cage our lilium for that reason.

Sounds wonderful that there soon will be a yellow ensata with a choice of crossing them. Hope when your iris seedlings finally bloom you show them for us to see.

The trench, actually wider than a box as 6 boxes are on a openwork pastic tray, has the base about a foot above the top of the seed boxes. Leaves & debrey have sort of filled in underneath the trays, but the lower level is still almost that depth. The screening is made of the 'hardware cloth' type narrow mesh and is attached to a board margin. We get 3 rows of 2 boxes per tray. That way one box can be lifted out without desturbing the others, if they do not show germination. When there are a great amount of seeds per cross (maybe over 40) more boxes are used per cross. The boxes are marked with a waterproof pen on a small plastic stake which is placed between the dirt & side of the box. We find metal garden markers with a P-touch label has worked best when the plants are lined out. Being below ground helps keep the roots from freezing.

Well, now IM off to clean my iris beds. Yuck. LOL

Just returned from weekend in Ohio--so haven't checked the iris beds. Great gobs of leaves around, but don't usually move pine needles off iris beds until April.

There are now 6 inches of snow on top of my iris beds, which I cleaned up last weekend when it was dry and sunny outside. Sigh. Only found one mushy rhizome, the rest looked fine.

At least you had a good start. We uncovered the crocus next to the house, yesterdays wind sent leaves back, could see the tops of blossoms peeking out. We have a New England stone wall built without motar along the road which has daffodil lines. They come up first because of heat bouncing off the wall. DH has been raking the leaves from those. He uses a tarp to move them downhill in our woods to the compost pile.We had at least one rhizome with rot, a 3/4 AB which wouldn't grow well here, but had been sent to us. Everything else appears solid, will be able to really check the beds once the pine needles are taken off.

My irises have little leaves poking up and slowly growing. Mostly they look good except for one new patch of Dusky Challengers, I moved into a place where I had hoped to start a new iris bed. 3 out of 4 of the rhizomes are mushy and appear to be dead or dying. One new shoot is poking up. I did divide and move them rather late in the fall and the new patch stays covered in snow longer than any place else in my yard.
I will plant some more iris there this year, but I will be sure they are planted in late summer and not in late fall. I will try to make sure the cuts are truly dried out -- maybe after a clorox dip. I certainly hope that this doesn't mean doom for my planned new iris garden.