Why I Oughta...

We have a purple bearded Iris planted on the southside of our house, behind the Limelight Hydrangeas and right off the side porch.  I call these our "Indiana Street Iris" because they came from my sister - who lives on Indiana Street.  These Irises are from her neighbor Wes, who moved out and had his hosue torn down.  These were 'rescue irises'.  I planted a small clump in June 2021 - here's a photo that shows how small they were (all foliage) .    They put out a small bloom a few weeks later .   Last year, this bloomed in June and had put on some good size in the two years it has been here .  Below, is the Indiana Street Iris that has a number of shoots pointing upwards that will bloom in the coming weeks.   I haven't divided these, but perhaps this is the year - after they bloom.   These also have me thinking more about Irises - and in particular - an Iris that I came across at the Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant Sale c...

Yesterday, I posted some photos showing how I used the "Lasagna Method" to smother some grass with cardboard and top-it with mulch to improve a foundation-adjacent garden bed on the side of our house.  The goal was to raise up the soil level, smother out grass and improve the area looks-wise.   But, that wasn't the only recent improvement that I completed over on that side of the house.  While I was using gravel and river rock to level-out the pizza oven site, I decided to take a couple of bags of the River Rock to put to work by the downspout surface drain outlet.   I've been wrasslin' with surface water on this side of my house for years - here's a post from 2020 where I talk about 'floating mulch' due to the downspout release .  Over the years, I've seen the area erode and this Spring, I've attempted to address it in a few ways.  First, by hauling over some of the excavated material from the pizza oven project to 'fill in' some low...

Last Fall, when I was digging up/out the (extended) IB2DWs bed for the small conifer garden along the property line, I turned to a mix of grass-removal techniques.  The whole area was turf, so I did three things:  Dug it out, smothered it/covered it up and flipped it over (and smothered it).   For the material that I excavated, I brought most of it over to the southside of the house and used it to fill in the little gully/swale on the side of the house.  And, I tucked in a bunch of it (flipped over) along the side of the porch where I'd seen some erosion over the years.  On this side of the house, we have just ONE downspout that handles a big portion of the roof and when it gets clogged up, that gutter 'tops'.  That's one source of the erosion.  The other is the downspout outlet.  Whatever *does* get down the downspout, comes out one of those surface drains.    That 'flipped' turf was a way to raise the ground-level here.  And,...

Our Indiana Street purple Iris is blooming (again).   I posted a photo showing the pointed foliage tips emerging from the mulch early this Spring .  And now, we're getting a purple flower show on the side of our front porch.  The Iris came from my Sister who dug it out of her (and our...for two years) neighbor Wes' garden before it was destroyed by a teardown.  Wes (and my sister and us) all lived on Indiana Street.  Hence...me calling this our "Indiana Street Iris". We don't have too many flowers in our garden and I think I've been conditioned to think of irises as a flower that would be in 'your grandmothers garden' and something pedestrian.  (note...I also don't know the difference between Siberian and Bearded Irises...) I suppose I put them in the same category as Daylilies.  Something that I'm sure is fine for YOUR garden, but not something I need in mine.   I'm not totally sure why I feel that way.  But, I'm starting to think ...