In August 2012 I started a thread at cubits about "what have you done in the garden today"? It now has 379 pages and over 7500 replies. I did the first serious work with my iris today.....light weeding, fertilizing, rewriting some stakes, and removing brown leaves . The clumps look great and I will take some pictures tomorrow. Some SDB's planted against a warm wall have stalks coming. I realize that many of us are currently having different iris experiences. Some in warmer climates have TB bloom. Some, like our friend Lucy, are waiting for snow to melt. Let's share what is happening with iris in each of our gardens.......

A lot of my iris beds are too wet to get into right now. I weeded the ones that were dry enough to get into. I counted the little emerging stalks on the SDB's and I will probably count them every day until they bloom. I pulled off some old leaves and planted two new Siberian irises that were gifts. it is always good to get out into the garden this early in the spring here to smell the earth awakening and hear the frogs singing in the hollow. We are supposed to have a sunny day tomorrow. I will weed some more and enjoy the little bulb iris blooms until a bearded opens up.

I have ordered some irises most of which are dwarf varieties so I am going to enrich the beds where they will be planted in the next few weeks. I want a place to plant the rhizomes when they arrive.

Bonnie....your beds are to wet. Mine are so dry that I watered yesterday

A sunny day in the 50's today so got most of the shriveled/brown leaves off the clumps. Those in the rear of beds are not reachable until the soil dries out. There are increases on many of the rhizomes, but a few are disappointing with nothing new showing. I hope they show signs of life soon. The several hundred Canadian Geese that flew overhead while doing this confirmed that spring is coming!

The snow has finally melted from my hillside garden, but it is still too wet to do any serious work in it. I did a walk around this afternoon. It looks like things are just beginning to wake up.

I pulled a bunch of dead foliage off several iris but the most work I did was in the new bed by the driveway. I spread my iris around and don't have a dedicated area.

I'm continuing with my work in the fenceline bed -- removing leaves, pulling weeds, removing dead Iris leaves and just generally giving the rhizomes room for the sun to shine on them and the soil to dry. Today I began to spray weeds that I can't pull. Next I need to Preen the beds. Then just let Mother Nature take over. Most of the new rhizomes in that bed (fenceline) are looking very good.

Paul -- your thread on Cubits is just awesome!!! It's been going for several years now!

BTW -- what's your avatar now?

Mary Ann.....my current avatar is SDB Raspberry Ice. It will be interesting to see where this thread goes.

I have Raspberry Ice ordered this year. It is another one that has been on my list of "gotta gets".

It is four a.m. and I am awake planning garden strategy. It is going to rain tomorrow so I need to get a lot accomplished today. Coffee now.

I bought a few potted irises.

It's 3:30 am and I can't sleep.

Where did you buy potted iris Rob and what were they?

Thanks, Paul -- it's a pretty one!!

We have had a few days of very warm dry weather, so I weeded and fertilized the tree ring bed. Today I need to go buy more bone meal, and such so I can finish fertilizing the one large bed that still needs to be done. There has been noticeable growth in the fans in the last few days, but I am still a bit out from bloom stalks. I think I will have more SDB's that will bloom this year. The ones that I got from Tom and from Stout's are particularly hardy and have lots of increases. The iris in my long bed (the one that needs fertilizing) are developing more slowly than some of the others. I think the bed may be retaining more moisture than the other beds. Hmmmmm.

Since we had a late snow and ice after the fans had a warm spell to grow I notice more leaf spot. I will be spraying fungicide this afternoon when I get home from work.

Except for just 'looking" ,I haven't started any clean-up or fertilizing yet....but, by the end of the week, I should be "into it"

All of the little guys that I planted last year have done well. That little Enchanted Princes that I got from Bonnie is going gang busters. I think she likes the cold winters.

I have 5 beds of iris that I'm slowly weeding. By the time I get done with the 5th, the 1st will need attention again!!

I'm going to get a hair cut and then to get emissions check on my truck so I can register it again. Then home and down on the ground to work on the iris

I did about 30 minutes of work yesterday in the garden. Only progressed about seven feet (weeding and leaf clipping). Lost two "Black is Black" "clumpette's(two rhizomes set together to make a mini clump) and a portion of "Grateful Red" (lost one of the two rhizomes in the clumpette).

Very hard to work in such wet conditions. Lots of weeds too; small but many.

Because our weather is so different, warm and dry, I had to weed my beds about 6-8 weeks ago so I could fertilize and begin watering. My soil is sandy so the water drains quickly. I'm watering about once a week and have been for over a month now. I'm still dealing with my snail problem and leaf spot is always and issue because many of my irises are in places that receive overspray from the sprinklers that run every night.

Today I spent this morning cleaning out several of the other planter areas where I have killed off the grass and am gradually planting other plants. I would like to eventually mix some historics in with these plants because I think they would do better with the partial shade from the almond trees. I have spent the last 2 weeks trying to get the weeds and bermuda grass under control in the field where I hope to eventually plant all my potted irises. I finally had to hire someone to come in with a tractor (he'll be here tomorrow) to mow down the weeds because the foxtails are beginning to go to seed due to the warm dry weather. I need to get them out of there before the seeds mature and drop.