Thank you Diana for the information and I'm sorry Jeanne to hear about all that rain! I know that a lot of rain can completely ruin an iris garden. I will remember that when I feel like complaining about the heat and the water bill.
It was finally cooler yesterday although windy but my sister and I worked in the iris and cleaned out leaves and debris. She trimmed some other bushes that we had put there when everything was small, but they have took over and she cut them way back because they were too shady for the iris. After the iris bloom next year I will remove the iris too close these bushes and find some nice shade loving plants to put under them.
The iris really need dividing but I don't want to do that until they bloom and I get them identified. They did bloom this year but I was too sick to take care of it. The new ones are getting marked before they get planted. My sister came up with a different idea to mark them so we would not have to go out and buy marking stuff. I had gotten an ImpressArt kit for my birthday last year and we decided to use it. The kit is a metal stamping kit, with metal letter stamps that you hit with a special hammer and it will emboss the letter on a lot of different surfaces. She noticed office fasteners one day and we decided to use those. I stamp the name on the center part and fold the ends around the iris which is loose enough for the iris to grow and not too tight. They are staying on fine here in my area even with the wind but i'm not sure of other places. Of course you could put them in the ground but I'm not sure if the would corrode. The print is small and one would have to take the tag off to read it but I am also making a map of each area for a quick name. And I'm also marking the noids with "NOID" and a number I have assigned to the seller. If the seller ever posts a name I would be able to match them up. I am hopeful this will work and will save them from losing their names again. I do have a map I had used in California and a list of the ones I bought but I don't know where they were planted, hence waiting till spring.
I tried to add iris pictures but they showed up really big so I'll have to resize them before I post again.
