Its a beautiful clear and somewhat warm November day.
My poor iris collection has had it pretty rough in the front yard the last couple of years. They started out in bright summer sunlight of the Central Valley summers. Iris love sun. Now they sip ice tea under the branches of these miniature peach and nectarine trees all summer and they aren't looking very rigorous.
Their glory days occur in March and into April. During this season, the leaves have not formed such a deep blanket above them to prevent their blossoms from display. Its fairly obvious that at the end of the summer, these direct sun lovers are having a hard time coming up for the extreme sunlight they need. They really need to be divided and restarted somewhere else.
A nice barrier of empty planing area exists on the crescent shaped hill in the front that have the big trees. Dad always has a chuckle at my trees. They get a "toupee cut." Sheared off in fall and the winter to a height no greater than ten feet, they are the perfect "pickers trees." No ladder is required to thin the fruit, or pick the peaches and pluots when they are ripe. On the ground in front of the crescent is a perfect spot for the iris. They are headed there this fall.
Each iris plant had gone through a rejuvenation of its own and abandoned its old root tubers. Last week they were cut off and discarded. The new plants form as shoots off the side of the last blossoming tuber. These were cut leaving some root and their cuts from the old tuber allowed to air dry. The air dry is now complete and they are ready to read to their new location.
First the ground needs to be prepared. I weeded the area. I started turning over the soil. We have tough clay based soil. I lasted a half an hour with the digging. Sue has agreed to let me buy a mantis mini rototiller. I am hoping that the new tool with really help.
Today we were off to get one. But first we needed to do the fabric store for some zippers for the turquoise pillows she is making Linzi and Sean's new Berkley apartment. The material arrived via ebay yesterday and it is pretty cool. Linzi wanted some turquoise velvet for the pillows. We also needed to shop at Ross for some curtain rods.. We found out through text messaging and phone calls that they were not needed. On to the dollar store Sue headed. She did not find a little notebook that she was looking for but still some other 99 cent treasures found their way to the basket.
Luckily Orchard Supply Hardware is a short couple of blocks away.
At OSH I knew they had the mantis brand mini rototiller that I was looking for. The manager was summoned and he found one in the box in the back. He brought it to us with already in a cart. I added a sack of soil amendment and we were off.
When I got home, I needed a gas tank.. its a 2 cycle engine and needs the oil mixed into the gas. My other yard equipment is 4 cycle and they take gas straight. Also it required two 7/16 box wrenches to tighten up the bolts. I got these at Lowes. Now its too dark to put it together. But it will be waiting for me tomorrow!
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