So, what to do? Eventually, we hired a crew to dig, rototill and put in 5 yards of good topsoil/compost, and then added sand to the mix as well. Before they arrived. I soaked the area and used the garden fork to start to loosen the soil. If it wasn't pre-moistened, there would be no digging. That was enough to get them started.
So even if I already dug an iris bed, and I had irises in the perennial beds, I still needed this space.
So when they left, the next day, I got a large roll of twine and some stakes and started to measure the rows, to put 10 irises in each double row, and make walkways in between.
I already had a small bed of iris rows, 10 raised beds of which formerly housed tomato, pepper and squash plants. Oh, and some large pots as well. (Should get rid of the "pot ghetto", right?)
Eventually, they all got planted. (Still, somehow, I STILL have a pot ghetto!)
Alright, there is the background. The gory details are on past (2017) threads on the Iris forum should you be totally bored one day.
Now, at the moment, I had very little in bloom due to our erratic weather. It warmed up too early and everything started growing, then it snowed several times and really did not warm up that much since then. In fact it hailed yesterday and twice today. The day before yesterday, it was warm enough for me to get out and weed. I am WAY behind in weeding! I will probably not get caught up this year.
