Iris my case

I rest my case. Irimoving irisess(d) development. My brain was so frazzled today I ended up trying to do iris puns.

Can one get heat stroke in April? It was hot today. I learned my lesson from yesterday (sunburn) and actually wore long sleeves and kept my sun hat firmly on my head; but it was a bit of a wade.

I really only had one job on my task list today. I had to move all the plants out of the courtyard, in preparation for the building work tomorrow.

So you would think that I started in the right place and worked diligently through the list.  But no.  For some dumb reason I decided to mulch.

Actually I know why I did. I had forgotten to haul two sacks of grass cuttings which I had bagged up and left at the road side.  I caught a glimpse of the blue bags out the window at breakfast  (name a famous Swedish furniture store and you will know how distinctive they are). mulching shade garden

So that started me off.  I mulched part of the shade garden which had missed out on the precious chippings. It should work. The grass mulch won’t condition the soil or do much good. But it should keep the weeds down underneath.

asparagus bedAnd then I staggered up to the asparagus bed with two sacks for the final mulch there.

I actually ran out with just a few feet to go. So I went in search of more mulch. They were down in the lower potager.

And instead of just emptying half a sack and getting on with the courtyard plants, I started on a mad scheme to mulch the old strawberry bed that wraps around the vegetable garden. potager corner

See, heat stroke obviously.

iris in wallsIt’s a fetching part of the garden with the lime green of the euphorbias and the iris growing out of the wall.  And the best bit is I didn’t plant either.

The euphorbia wulfenii self seeded and the iris stubbornly refuses any attempt to weed them out and place them in a better spot.

By lunchtime I realised that irises was what I needed to be working on; but not down in the vegetable garden. I abandoned the mulching (two bags short) and want up to the courtyard to survey the scene.

The annoying thing is you can’t see the scale of the problem from this shot.  iris to move

This is a huge clump of stunning plants that are just starting to flower.  Another moment to curse the timing of the renovations. So the very first thing I did was to cut the flower stalks and stick them in a vase.

The poor plants wont be happy having to be uprooted so at least I could spare them trying to flower as well.

DSC01943They are fetching in a vase. And hopefully they will settle into their new position up the walnut path.

I hadn’t really thought out where I was going to plant them. Sorry, transplant them. And naturally I chose the one spot in the garden that has more stones and rocks in the soil than just about anywhere else.

Fingernails? What fingernails. I had to prise out stones, scrape soil, plod back to find extra soil, water like mad, and do it countless times. irises walnut path

Well, I did count. There are over seventy irises here.  And some of those a clump of about four or five flowerings stalks.   Beyond tedious.

And as time was running out I realised that I had to get one huge lavender out of the garden and move it somewhere; plus dismantle the broken planter and save the rose and bulbs.

No languid Sunday for me.

Luckily I had a nice distraction when Elodie came over with her children to pick tulips and lilacs. But then it was back to the wrenching of roots.

lavender to moveThe lavender was a beast. You can see from the bulldog fork behind the plant just how big this lovely lavender is.   And it took ages to uproot.

I wonder if it will flower this year after its rude displacement. I found a home for it with the other lavenders in the barn garden bank.   It blends in nicely. But I fear it might sulk.

And speaking of sulks. Artur was absent today. He came to see me this morning, but had other plans. I have no idea where he is snoozing in the day time if he isn’t in the potting shed. But he didn’t emerge around 5pm which he usually does to pester me and demand attention.

And with two builders and two handymen, endless vehicles including a mini digger, I don’t think the little cat will be around this farm much all week.