We’re about to have some major landscaping done or a rather ratty part of our yard. (Hangs head in shame for neglecting the garden.) Before they start, I’m trying to save as many iris and daylilies as I can, since I don’t want to pay the crew to sort good from bad. I’m hoping to replant everything after they’re done, either close to the new landscaping or in another part of the yard. The trick is finding spots that are sunny enough for long enough, but I digress…
I’ve done searches, so I don’t need links. What I’d like is personal anecdotes and/or advice so I don’t lose any (many) of my transplants. I live in southern Maryland, Zone 7, and the soil here is heavy with clay, dammit. Recommendations for soil enrichment would be great.
Also, if I can’t get everything planted this fall, can I store/save the rest and plant in the spring? One site said something about wrapping the rhizomes in newspaper - ever done that? Have you ever dug a trench, placed the plants, then filled it in rather than digging individual holes? If so, is it any easier? At this stage of my life, I can manage 30-60 minutes of work before I need a break, depending on how hot it is, so anything to simplify and speed up the process is great.
I’m a terrible gardener and don’t have many plants. Almost everything I have is stuff that other well-meaning people planted for me and I have managed to not kill it. Two plants I have actually dealt with directly are iris and daylillies. IMHO they are super hard to kill.
I’ve dug up the irises a few times to deal with the weeds that keep growing between them, and just plopped them back down and back they come, every year. They even get pushed up with the full rhizomes sticking out of the dirt like potatoes on a plate, and yet they persist, tall and strong. Last year I got a little nervous about the exposure and dumped a bag of dirt (just something from Scott’s) and a bag of soil on top and they seemed to really love that and went crazy this year, getting taller.
I pulled out some yucca last summer and my Green Thumb Queen neighbor told me to replace them by getting some day lillies from the local garden club sale, so I did so. I put them in the ground, tamped them down with my foot, added more dirt and mulch, and watered daily. This year they were growing and even got some flowers!
There’s a day lilly in my back yard which my dog used to sit in and dig in and bury tennis balls in. It just keeps coming back every year but it sort of moves around the dug areas. Like “oh the dog hangs out here so we’ll just grow in front of that.” It’s prolific!
My planting beds are just dirt and mulch, nothing fancy. In fact the back yard area is dirt and garden rock - even less fancy. So they are probably good soil areas compared to clay, I dunno.
But I feel confident that you’ve picked two plants that are SUPER easy to transplant and will come back nicely with the slightest amount of care.
I think so, too, though I did lose my 8-10 plant iris patch in one season after several successful and easy years. Probably a coldsnap, I noticed they didn’t come back one spring. We’re 5a-b here, though temperatures are rising!
But the lilies came with the house 15 years ago and seemed well established at the time (edit: I guess I’ve never transplanted daylillies). And today show no signs of slowing down, but also not propagating or expanding. Easy to keep growing at this stage is an understatement. The rabbits like to hide in them and the blackeye susans. A similar patch of lilies at my parents’ home is today pretty much as I remember from 40 years ago, too.
The rhizomes are quite durable. Yes dig up what you can. Wrap in paper or burlap feed sacks. Store in a shed or garage if you decide to over winter. Don’t forget them in the spring.
I’d personally get them in the ground as soon as I could before the ground freezes. Mulch heavily
I’ve found you’ll probably lose some but there’s about 100 that will take their place. Don’t get bogged down in separation and being selective. They have self selection. The strongest survive.
I’ve done a bunch with bulbs and rhizomes. I used to fastidiously dig them up every year. Gave up that. I added to beds every year and kept the flower show every spring, that way.
Sometimes you have to choose your garden wars(funzies) to what you think you’ll be doing next year.
I never expect to see spring flowers anymore. It’s a Dark Victory ( ) these days.
Daylilies are tough to kill. Are these just the plain orange ones? We call those outhouse lilies, as my understanding is they often mark the sites of old outhouses. Scratch up the dirt, sprinkle some dirt/mulch atop them, and they’ll overwinter fine.
W/ iris, I assume you are talking about bearded iris. If transplanting the rhizomes, take the time to inspect them. Some times the center of the mass will rot. Transplant only the firm healthy portions. DO not bury them too deep.
Sure, you could trench them as you describe. Both would PROBABLY even survive if you just mulched them heavily.
Serious soil enrichment is a bitch. You need to systematically spade each area, spading in generous amounts of organic material. But basically anything is better than nothing. Start off by mulching your grass and leaves, and spreading them over your gardens. Spade in a small portion however often you are able to do so. If you can get composted manure readily and cheaply, that is great too. People will suggest all sorts of involved approaches. But you don’t have to be too “scientific” about it. Just keep working in organic material. IMO you don’t need to spring for pricey additives like work castings and mushroom compost.
Working in some sand can also improve drainage.
I’m not a big fan of raised beds, but my impression is that some folk prefer them because they are easier to fill with good soil than remediating poor soil.
We have an attachment to our riding mower that vacuums up and mulches leaves and we empty it among the trees in our yard. I’ll retrieve some and mix it in - the leaves from 2 or 3 years back should be well composted by now. I hadn’t thought of this, so thanks!
The Amish horses around here drop a lot of manure on the side of the roads, but I understand it takes a few years to be safe to use… and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to stop and scoop up horse poop.
You might be able to buy home mulched horse poo from the Amish. I’m sure they have butt loads of it. Maybe they have a sideline business in shit sales.
I second all the anecdotes about the ease of propagating your basic standard daylilies and irises. I just dig up some plants when they’ve finished blooming and plop them into the new location, with maybe a small amount of fertilizer in the hole for treatsies. They may be rather sluggish and sad the next season (and yes, if you’ve got stuff around that eats them voraciously, that’s when they’ll be most vulnerable), but in a year or two they’ll be fine.
Also, as a fellow clay-soil gardener, you don’t really need to enrich clay soil so much as amend it. Clayey soils are very mineral-rich already, but like all other soils, they benefit by being balanced out with well-rotted organic matter to keep all those soil nutrient networks active and regulate drainage etc.
And as somebody who’s scavenged horse poop from passing mounted police officers for gardening purposes, if you spread the poop rather thinly over the soil surface and mix it pretty lavishly with other organic matter, and (most importantly) don’t plant anything in it for a few months, it should be fine. It won’t necessarily be totally decomposed when you go to plant, but it won’t burn the plants like fresh manure.
I’ve read of gardeners burying fresh manure deep and then shortly thereafter planting in a few inches of topsoil on top of the manure, but I haven’t tried it.
Poo of any kind needs to wait a few months up to next year’s garden. It’ll be too “hot” for awhile.
It’s not rocket surgery though.
I’ve always found bulbs and rhizomes are the easiest way to have flowers. Tho’, pesky squirrels will dig your bulbs up, right behind you. Especially if you actually paid an exorbitant price at a daffodil/tulip show. “Curse you Sam the Squirrel and your family. I’ll never forgive you.”
Funny, as much as I like bulb gardening. As much root veggies I’ve grown, I cannot grow a garlic bulb. I’ve tried for years. We finally figured out deer were eating the green sprig as soon as it popped up.
One lean year I spotted them digging up the garlic bulb and eating them.
When I moved here in the 1980’s, there were daylilies growing out in the fields. The man I bought the place from said they’d once grown in flower beds, but somebody who didn’t like them dug them up and threw them out.
Thrown out, on that place (and on a lot of farms at the time, for a lot of kinds of waste) meant “tossed out in a field.” Where they rooted themselves and grew.
I was having tile line put in, and they were growing in the wet spots the tile was going through. So I dug some of them up and moved them, because I thought being dug up for the tiling might kill them. I replanted them in a couple of other wet spots, because I thought that was what they liked.
Some years later, I read that daylilies needed good drainage, don’t plant them in wet spots. These daylilies can’t read; they’re still growing fine, both where I planted them and next to the tile line.
) these days.
