Monday, August 10, 2009

What A Mess!

It doesn't look too bad now, but you should have seen it Saturday - a large blue tarp covered in mud and mud puddles, iris leaves strewn everywhere, discarded rhizomes, and me - hacking away like a mad woman. :D As this particular chore has never been necessary till now, I was not prepared for how physically taxing it would be to lift a huge clump of iris rhizomes, then separate out the twisting maze of roots.

Not one to give up easily, I persevered to the end of the job. With an almost blank canvas in this part of the garden, I can now prune a bit out of those roses and do a little bit of rearranging.

The two smaller clumps of iris yielded me these new starts. . .

and the two huge clumps gave me these in the five-gallon bucket . . . and a whole lot of others out on the compost pile!

Saturday DH even got in on the act by installing new irrigation water lines from the main to the faucets in the front of the house. Said faucets are on either side of the planting bed (see below) we've been working on. The rock perimeter is now in and we've begun filling in the hole with top soil.


After an arduous day in the garden I was totally pooped out. So no stitching is going on around here. I couldn't even stay awake to watch the entire dvd of 24, season 5, that DH and I put on that evening. Konked out in the middle of the third episode on the disk.

Dd Melanie has been home for a week now following her latest adventures with the fire clean up crews and is getting a bit antsy for the next call out. So far it's been a slow fire season which is good in some ways, as no one wants to see our forests burning. On the other hand, the work she would get from said fires builds up her bank account and pays for college expenses.

This week my boys are back teaching Good News Clubs, so there is more coming and going, in addition to the early morning x-country practice. School will be starting here the end of the month, so I need to get some lists made of things we need to do, like sports physicals, and things we need to buy. That sucking sound you hear is our bank account draining, lol!

As Newsgator informed me that they will no longer be supporting their on-line feed readers, like me, I had to migrate my feeds over to Google Reader. So far I've been happy with their reader, but the account filled with a lot of old feeds and it's been slow going getting everything looked at and cleared out. One day soon, I'll be back to reading my list more consistently and leaving more comments. Till the next thing comes up. It always does.

14 comments:

Deb said...

So much work! But the end results are going to be so worth it. I'm going to look forward to seeing how everything looks next year!!

Lelia said...

I have some iris bulbs to move, too --- just waiting closer to Fall weather.

Cathy B said...

Lots of work for sure but I bet your flowers will be beautiful next year!

Dani - tkdchick said...

Wow that's a lot of work Von but I'm sure your gardens will be spectacular in a year or two once everything settles.

a woman who is said...

It is looking wonderful...so glad the weather has cooled down. Will be getting to planting those babies soon.

We must regroup again and have a garden tour and tea:)

Carolyn NC said...

Yes, the beginning of school is a drain for sure. Isn't it amazing how yard work will just exhaust you? I think it's a combination of the work, mugginess, and heat! Good luck with the area.
PS - I love Google reader!

Meredith said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Meredith said...

Hi Von! Whew, that looks like it was a lot of work! I'm tired for you! It will be so beautiful though! Hope you've gotten some rest and stitching time :-) Meredith

Brigitte said...

This definitely looks like a whole lot of work. But your will be rewarded when your garden will look beautiful with flowers.

Kathy A. said...

Oh my goodness girl. I hereby dub thee Master Gardener. Anyone who works that hard in their gardens deserves an award. They will be stunning when it is all done

Dianne said...

I've separated irises before (just last year) and it was a ton of work. If we lived closer, we could have traded. The newer ones of mine didn't do much, maybe they need to establish themselves more. I'll probably be out there again in about a month doing more separating.

Sherry said...

You will be so happy with it all next year!

mainely stitching said...

Oh my heavens, Von! You must be exhausted thru & thru! But it will be so worth the effort. Good job!!

a woman who is said...

Just checking to see if you got those roses planted...me...not quite :/