Rainy Days

There is the saying that "God made rainy days, so gardeners could get the housework done." Whoever came up with this is partially right.  My house is a disaster.  It needs a good cleaning, closets need purging and some TLC.  Some of that is because of life and some of it is because I generally don't care.  Whoever came up with this is partially wrong because they never lived in the West or some place where rain is sporadic and at times scarce.  We went from kinda winter to full on summer over night.  I missed the raining days mid-May to get work done in the yard.  When I saw the weather forecast for this week, I knew I had to get stuff done in the yard now because next week is back to hot, hot, hot.

I started my big garden push yesterday. I didn't get everything done, but I made a huge dent.  One of my projects was the perennial bed on the northeast side of the yard.  The purple iris had taken over and pushed out the Vermilion Bluffs sage.  The yarrow moved to the front of the bed and everything under it seems to be stunted.  The Siberian iris was no better than the iris and yarrow. I made a big mess and started cleaning it up.  Purple iris is gone and replaced with new iris.  Yes, I know I replaced one problem for a future problem, but the new iris is not all purple.  Yarrow was moved back and more echinacea was added. There is a giant hole where everything was, but it will fill in and next year it will be wonderful.

Purple iris in a neat pile

Hot mess!

Big hole, but new plants are going in.

Big hole

Giant mess

Look there was a plant hiding in the yarrow

A little better