We have started our seasonal cleanup. Some of the irises were chopped down to the ground and the weeds removed. My partner had garden shears but I used scissors. We walked away with 7 yellow bags full of rubbish.
This past week the team spent some time in the Iris Garden (FG #1) removing weeds and deadheading the irises. There were hundreds of pods to remove. It took about two hours to remove the flower pods. If the pods were not removed all the seeds would have been released into the ground. Normally, allowing seeds to self-sow is a good thing but in the case of this garden not so. Self-sowing would create a big problem with overcrowding in this very special bed.
As you can see, there are already lots of little volunteer irises coming up. The volunteers will be removed over the next few weeks to prevent said overcrowding. Aren't the Fireweed flowers lovely?
The iris garden (FG#1) was in full bloom this year. So lovely. Lots of water was provided by mother nature and the Baptist church. A huge thank you to the church team for helping get these beauties a drink. This year has been a cool and wet year. The day I took these pictures was one of the rare sunny days we were blessed with.
Whew, we made it through the "Year of Lemons".
It took me longer to get out to Garden 1/Iris Garden. I checked on it in late May, before we planted the welcome sign flowers. All that work last year really paid off. The grass and weed I pulled only constituted half a bag of rubbish. New plants that were not present last year had popped up (mostly what looked like false strawberry plants) near the rock-drain area. The MUNI gave us excess plants so we got permission to use them in this area. Daisy, Begonia, and Chamomile were added to the beds. The pictures were taken in mid-June; some of the irises are blooming.
