My ambition has been peaking. So has my need to dig into a job and get it done for the year.
When I say "digging", I mean it literally. Perhaps half of my iris have been relocated. There's an easy path out to the rest of them, right through the middle of my round raised garden. I made that when I dug out the first batches of iris to move. It was lumpy and totally unsafe for this set of wobbly legs, trying to find flat spots big enough for a foot at a time, avoiding the raised blocks which weren't doing a good job of being stepping stones due to elevation above dirt level, find a spot to start the shovel going down, hoping to stand on the edge of it to force it further in the dirt than arms alone could manage and do all that without losing my balance and falling. In desperation I managed to grab clumps of the tallest of the daylily leaves to keep myself stable.
They didn't seem appreciative. I decided not to mind, counting on their reputation for hardiness, especially this late in the year, nearly all blooming done.
Despite never really getting injured when falling, I have developed an actual deep dread of doing so. It can take me a minute - an actual minute, not just the expression - to work up to lifting one leg and placing the foot in the next desired spot to get close where I need to dig next. It's complicated by the other plants in the way, which I don't want to step on, even though they are daylilies and virtually indestructible even if I manage to sprawl over the totality of them. Those same impediments assist my safe passage so I consider it an even exchange. They haven't tried to argue where I could hear it. I do apologize mentally to them. Hey, show me an ear and I'll do it out loud... quietly of course so the neighbors don't think I'm completely crazy.
The part of the garden which got dug and trampled and guided me safely to my goal, once the desired plants had been removed and all the broken daylily leaves cut back, is now mostly bare, smooth, and safe. More iris wait at the end of it to get dug, after which new daylilies go in those spaces. I'm itching to get back out there and dig. Then soak the iris, cut leaves back, and plant them in the area of their new home which had a lovely new layer of top soil spread across it waiting. The next stage should be much easier.
Except...
During those days of the first move it was cool. The air was dry. And I still had salty sweat running down my face. I'd put a folded bandana over my head and knotted it so it would stay put and soak up the sweat. Within two minutes it didn't matter. I pulled some paper towels out of my pocket and wiped my face over and over to clear my vision, keep my eyes from stinging, and myself from being so ungodly uncomfortable. I wanted to keep working, get the job done, pat myself on the back for a mission accomplished after months of planning and shopping and drawing out a layout and researching depth for various species. It was miserable joyous work, and it ended too soon.
Note I didn't claim it was finished. That's why it ended too soon.
The rest of the job still waits. The new dirt for most of the remainder of the new bed has been spread and broken up from large clods to much smaller ones. I found a way that didn't put too much weight on either shoulder, once my son dug the remaining rhubarb plants out of the bed. I drove one of those to its new home, and he took some fresh topsoil home with him to make his own new rhubarb patch out of the remaining plants. I learned to start planting at one end of the new iris strip, free to walk over the new dirt as I backed over it to make space for the next row, and so forth, never needing to reach across on my knees but bend down from the hips, a much better point of balance for me, until I ran out of dug iris.
There is an intimidating amount of them left in their original patch, though new space is prepared for them. But the heat and humidity are back, without bringing rain, my energy first thing in the morning when it's pretending to be cool leaves something to be desired, and my hopes still rest with the morning weather report. It's still too warm for me, not too warm for the iris, nor too cool, leaving my dilemma as a weight like concrete shoes keeping me inside the house until it really is too cool in late fall to get them settled in properly.
We just don't want to mention the fear of falling in the garden which still lingers, despite work and logic. Even with some of the the causes removed, there is still that moment when one foot has to be lifted, the other balanced on while the shovel is properly placed for the lifted foot to descend on it with a very decided and well-aimed stomp, then a tilt, a lift, a further stomp to shove more, another tilt to loosen and lift roots... and then the search for that perfect space to lay the shovel down in the garden full of growing plants without damage where it can not only sit while the freed iris are lifted from their clinging dirt, relieved of enough burden from their former rootball that they can be gently tossed outside the bed wall onto the lawn without any further damage until they soak in a pail of water.
As long as that takes to read is also as long as it takes to do, adding the burden of making sure where the shovel lands is easily reached again to pick it up again for the next dig without losing balance for that either. Remember that where they have dug in for two years is also where the daylilies have surrounded them and grown close and tall, and are meant to give this growing and blooming duty another crack at their job the next year, and the next. There are also new daylilies meant to be planted in some of the spaces now bereft of iris, once the removal is complete, but not until. They are not to be tromped on again, at least not this year. All need some time to get new roots established in roomier soil.
I bet most of you gardeners out there read all this, think it's not in need of description because for you it's a simple dig-lift-dig-lift-replace kind of job. I also bet you haven't found that fear of falling when another person or two are required to get you up and vertical again without further damage because your own body no longer does it as simply as it used to before replacement parts had to be placed in. Once that uneasiness is installed along with those new parts and several experiences, then that awareness seeps in of just how many chances there are for something wrong to happen. Fear is invasive as weeds, and grows from just as tiny seeds. One finds a reason bigger than the fear to continue, and gradually conquers a bit here and a bit there... or doesn't. The job is more complex in those circumstances.
I can't be sure there is room for all the current iris. I know I bought some spectacular ones when we moved here but they didn't bloom yet. I never marked them when planted, just remember them as if they were a time on the clock face. If north is 12, they were planted between 7 and 10. That whole area waits to be dug. What other kinds are in there? Who can tell? I did manage to make arrangements with a good friend and dedicated gardener to adopt any I couldn't find room for in their new bed. Over half her yard is flowers. I gifted her with a single one last year. It did well, according to the photo she took. They'd be loved there. If I make a mistake and give away the most spectacular of those, I wrote down the name back when I planted them, and they are still on the market. Check out "Grand Canyon Sunset". I can dig out spaces and split where very plain but hardy iris are, or perhaps some just didn't survive being mailed which were new this year. I do wonder about a couple but only time will decide. I know, for example, I have an abundance of plain light blue bearded iris, lovely enough but easily growing into excess where a riot of colors is preferred. I expect more to thrive now without having to compete with daylilies. There are other gardeners in this neighborhood who don't mind free flowers and the care they need. But all will have adequate new homes in a week or so, or else. However.......
Tock tock, tick tock, the calendar is running out. Temperatures should be dropping. The task which calls louder daily should be getting easier daily, with cooler dryer air and less sweat in the eyes. A day here and then a day a week later would almost do it but somehow other needs fill those days. Doctor's appointments and other obligations still fill the calendar. There are mornings where by the time breakfast and getting dressed are accomplished that it's already too muggy and hot for hard work. The sun is still up plenty early, great for the plants but not for the one planting. One night with an inch of rain almost fools you into thinking the drought is over, which you readily conspire in agreeing with, because watering here HAS TO be followed immediately by hose removal and the hose is long enough in itself, not to mention when filled, to take up half an hour by getting itself moved... in the sun. That has to be figured in. Tools went missing for a few weeks, only to be discovered to have been hiding under the blade of the shovel plus a few plastic bags. I now own double sets. Sigh.....
Maybe tomorrow....
