I spent a few hours in the gardens moving Cemetery Iris. If I had a a few extra years that I could add to my life, just to make up for the time I have moved plants over and over in my garden, I’d live to be a very old woman. Most of the bulbs at the studio are not “strategically placed” in the gardens….to say the very least. It was more like “dump and run” after the flood. I was lucky to get them all dug and relocated, and I just stuck random bulbs in any random place I could find. I am FINALLY enjoying stepping back, looking at the gardens and rearranging. I’ve said this before, and I will say it again….I move plants like other people move furniture. I also cut my hair when I get stressed, so perhaps I shouldn’t completely pull back the Curtain of my Garden Oz yet.
Yesterday, I moved the Iris that had been put temporarly in front of the Crepe Myrtles, which were unkept for decades. I finally got the trees trimmed up from their scraggly demeanor. I have decided that Crepe Myrtles eat garden soil and Iris as an evening meal…..regurgitating crappy soil and more scraggly Crepe Myrtles. The Iris deserved a less toxic place to live, so I dug them all up and planted them as a border in front of the potting shed.
The “garden” in front of the potting shed is the old foundation hold where the pier and beam farmhouse used to stand. After the house was torn down, it took a year to disassemble and get rid of the debris. I tracked down a tree trimming company and begged them for their wood chips, which they gladly dumped at the studio. I filled in the hole with mulch and Voila! My new potting shed garden. All I can say is that a plain, unplanted mulch garden looks much better than the old drug-infested house! I’ve had to have patience while the mulch decomposed. In fact, I’ve had to have patience for the entire place. But I degress….
The Iris have now been planted and line the old foundation. The ugly mulch bed is beginning to take shape. Iris do that….Iris have a way of taking something ratty and making it wonderful. Even a vacant lot looks beautiful when clump of random Iris bloom. Maybe that’s why people used to plant an Iris at cemeteries. The Iris makes everything better.
I’m hoping to take a little bit of time this afternoon to move the Sternbergia and Oxbloods that were also dumped by the Crepes. I’m not sure where I am going to plant them, so until then…they stay as they lay. It is going to be a good day.
Happy Gardening, my friends!