It has been several years since I ordered new bearded Irises, as I had obtained so many through trades, swaps, and gifts from generous gardeners, that was all I could keep up with at the time. I've spent the last couple of years moving lots of them around to display them to best advantage and for color harmony. Completing that project showed me which colors were sadly unrepresented in the garden, so I had to fix that!

Normally, August is not a time of year I spend much time working the soil, and summer weeds hop on the chance to get a foothold. This year, due to having new Irises to install, I got the beds tidier than they've ever been at this time of year! Ha! New Irises make me a better gardener! Hmmmm....guess I'll have to do it every year....LOL

There ya go Neal -- one of the best reasons I've heard so far for ongoing accumulation of Irises!!!

Works for me! Well, the idea anyway, my garden's are not the tidiest right now, I better get working on that.

Most of my "new" irises are from trades. You can get a great selection through trades, especially from folks afar.

Ok, that did not sound great, let me explain.

I love trading with local folks (in my case, PA, DE, MD, & NJ). The issue is the trading becomes somewhat incestial nature. Everybody locally trades with everybody else, so we have mostly the same stuff. There are local influences or preferences that dictate what is available. Other areas may have newer (or older) introductions that make trading outside your normal trade zone attractive. This is why I love ATP (and cubits) because I am trading with folks all across the the country (and Canada too).

So, I have "bought" very little, zero in fact from normal iris vendors. The PNW was the only place I "bought" from.

Though, when you pay just postage for irises, you still are "buying" them. (kind of splitting hairs)

Glad to see you back in the thick of things Neal!

Thanks Greg! Feels good to be back into it. For a couple of years I really let my gardens go, and for the last 2 years I've been reclaiming them. At first it seemed like this monumental task, and totally overwhelmed me. I beat myself up over neglecting everything so badly, and kept telling myself if I didn't take care of what I have, I had no business adding any new plants. I changed my attitude toward the whole thing; first, it was just a bunch of little tasks, not one monumental task. And second, I realized new plants gave me just the incentive I needed to get out there and take care of the garden (no matter how lazy I feel, I can't install a new plant in a weedy bed!). Turns out, bearded Irises arrive at the perfect time to get things under control

whatever it takes to motivate us to keep our gardens tidy is a good thing. The hardest gardening job is reclaiming a garden once the wild things take over...... and any excuse to add a new iris to your garden is a good one. Having a new iris bloom in the spring is something to really look forward to and having a new one bloom that was a traded/shared iris is really special.

In our case, it was many 'moved' iris as we suffer from creeping shade. After the ponies left most of the new & seedlings moved out to the pasture, but it also means that our great supply of manure left also.

Neal,, so nice to see you on here.

Polly, it's good to be here, and good seeing you here too! I've thought of you as I've given TLC to the Sibs and JIs- they all responded beautifully this spring and the clumps have really beefed up this summer.

Good to know! And again, great to see you here, and stick around this time.

I second what Polly said, Neal.