Sorry for the delayed response. I've been having computer problems.
What did I mean by 'I could get hurt'? That was hyperbole, (bad habit). My 2 largest salvias have gotten rather dense and woody and I was thinking out loud (another bad habit) about what it would be like to remove one of them. 'Scratched' is more like it.
Before I go on, I have to say I'm amazed
@Calif_Sue that you have a 7 ft tall iris. That's very impressive.
Here's the chain of events. Feel free to ignore and just skip on down to where I say, 'Ask the experts', 'I don't remember' or 'Ya never know'.
A few days ago I had someone helping me clean up my perennial bed and do some other garden type stuff. I am currently under doctors' (yes, plural) orders not to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. Of course I'm mostly ignoring those orders but at least someone is helping me with the heaving lifting. I have a Flame Acanthus that absolutely had to be removed from the bed b/c it was taking over. It had been given to me as a little twig in a styrofoam cup and I had no confidence that I could keep it alive. But it grew. And it didn't stop. So my helper, and I dug it up and potted it in one of those huge 'pots' that trees are often sold in.
Ok. Now there's space to plant something else. I don't have a lot of areas that get full sun, or even part sun, so a lot of plants, including some of my irises, are in pots that can be moved around. I do have an iris bed but its size is limited due to shade that I get from my oaks and other trees. So I'm looking around and my helper sees some of the irises in pots and asks if she can transplant them into the space left by the acanthus. I agree, not really giving much thought to how they will look in the bed. I just knew they had to be planted. And boy did they have roots!
Later I'm lounging around, skimming thru old newspapers and magazines that I need to recycle. That's when I stumbled across an article in which someone was telling the tale of having to move her irises b/c the roots from her salvias were choking the irises. I freaked! Here I had just planted irises next to some well established salvias. Ack! Could this be true? Then snap! I'll
ask the experts here and maybe one of y'all might know.
I'm sorry to say that
I don't remember exactly where I read that. Maybe I can stumble across it again and if I do I will let y'all know. And to be fair, it didn't occur to me when I was freaking out that the author could very possibly have different types of soil, irises, etc. So what might have been true in her situation would not be in mine. Or maybe she was just nuts.
Ya never know.
I didn't take a picture of the finished product. But in the picture below, I was aiming for the flower buds on one of my milkweeds. However, if you squint, you can see a large black 'tub' with a Flame Acanthus in it. That's actually a different (and smaller) one that I previously removed from the bed.
A few days ago I posted a picture of a salvia greggii. Looking at it again, squinting, I see that there's a little iris sitting in the corner, still in a pot.
And Chatty Cathy here might as well finish this with a picture of the hot pink salvia greggii that I cleverly lost the label for.
Moral (for me) is 'Don't freak out!'
