Since they have never bloomed you won't be losing blooms which is the main reason to transplant later (after bloom). You may get bloom next year by moving them now. As long as freezing temps are finished! If your nights are up to 40 degrees do it :-)

Thanks for the advice. We did move them this weekend. Divided the 2 areas into manageable chunks to move (about 15 or so) and ended up with 6 nice plantings. Tried to keep them in the soil they were already in and planted them like that. So far so good. Thanks again!

iris gal, I know I should have used the search engine. My bad. I get tired of plowing through pages and pages of results or sometimes come up with nothing. Thank you for telling me exactly what I wanted to know. Andrea, first I need to know if your lilies have any orange in them because I don't want that. It could be the way your camera rendered the color, and I'll post my photo and don't know if it will look like what it looks like to me or not. They are truly crimson with no hint of orange as I saw them and tons of buds, both places I saw them full sun southern exposure which could account for that. I forgot on this photo (didn't take any of the one Chasing Rainbows that bloomed B4 if fell over and broke), but usually turn the exposure compensation down -2/3 (-1 on my old camera) when I am photographing colorful (& especially white) flowers in bright sun. That helps with metering and usually avoids blowing the highlights and also helps with the color. Won't go into a long song and dance, the bottom line is that cameras, processing and monitors, it can look one way to one person and sometimes a lot different to another. The thought of having to ship anything right now, although I would suppose iris are among the easiest to ship, is too much. So much going on that my son offered to take my grandson's broken camera to the po for me if I would just work out the details w/Canon and box it up ready to ship (which was nice of him, could use more help in the yard right now). Sigh. Not sleeping well. Wild's still have them for 3.50 would rather just order you some and have them shipped to you, they should have a sale coming up shortly but sale or no sale, I don't care at this point and those might not be on it. I want them short because I don't have full sun in but a few places. This area is on the east side and out several feet, so I think lilies would get enough sun but the taller ones would lean worse than the iris (there) trying to get a little more which probably didn't help in the rain. I wouldn't care if the shorter ones lean a little. These are all at the crest of a hill where I have hosta lining the steps now going down the slope, so I thought these would be kind of stunning there with the hosta. I kinda want to keep all my Chasing Rainbows and you have a better chance if you get 3 or 4 fresh ones which I would pay for and have shipped to you. In return if you think it is a fair trade AND the right color, you could send me what you decide is fair. My son would like a couple, too, but I want just enough to get a very small clump going on both sides of the hilltop, 2 narrowish spots. I am not the kind who keeps score particularly. For those lilies, maybe it's best not to move them now but thin them out when the foliage dies back and get the bulbs to me in the fall? Most Asians I've bought they only ship in spring. They do look pretty tough. Anyway, here is my photo I posted over on the lilies forum which is how I found out what they were, and my email address is aglessREMOVETHIS@earthlink.net.

Well, I started this topic with a typo, but you folks just want to keep it alive to embarass me! LOL. I now realize there is a Iris forum, and maybe I should have posted there, but this is the problem with discussion boards and how they "age" and what traffic they generate. Someday soon we will be posting our thoughts and opinions to a wiki where the information gets more "concentrated" over time. If you ever want to get a small Interent group to compile information (a church group, PTA, gardeners) look into creating a "peanutbutter wiki" sometime. In the meantime, thanks for all the advice...I'll be digging up the bed the weekend before we pack the car. I will look to treat the bulbs with something to prevent any unwanted transport or critters. For pjtexgirl, seeing as how you are from the Mojave, one of my favorite plants is the creasote bush, Larrea Tridentata. Some people think it is smelly and ugly, but I think it is beautiful because it uses the least amount of water of any plant while producing natural oils that have beneficial properties. Indigenous and Hispanic people have used it as a panecea, and it is called the Medicine Chest of the desert. It is almost impossible to grow from seed. I intend to make some trips out to the desert (it's range is huge, and I'll only have to go to West Texas, but the Mojave has pure stands for miles)and gather plants to transplant. The leaves are so pungent just a small sprig can be used as a foot bath for Athlete's Foot. I brew a tea that I pour on the rocks of my Finnish sauna. You know how the desert smells when it rains? Well, that's from the volitive oils of the creoste bush. It's kind of piney and earthy at the same time. But many folks can't stand the way it smells, so it's not for everyone (like anchovies and liver).