It's neat, being able to cut lots of stems. Like Bonnylynn, I was out of state when lots of mine were in full bloom. And the rain didn't help - seemed to be constant whenever I was home (I work full time), and then with the wind destroyed the blooms on my peonies. The roses opened while I was away, and many petals on ground when I found them opened up. But I've been having "bouquets" on my desk at work, as well as at home, since the daff's were in full bloom. We had a weather threaten to kill anything that wasn't brot indoors, so cut off some of the daff's. Was sure surprised when many others opened nice outdoors within a week. Tulips gone now, but had many. And the azalea bushes - wow! This year had LOTS of blooms, and cut some from stems "sticking out" from the rest of the bush. They mixed well with other things. This year also had some alyssum basket-of-gold (a perennial) bloom (winter sowed last year). Lots of blooms brot in to work. Right now I have a mixture: sweet wm., penstemen, bachelor button (w/s)(first bloom this year - but lots more buds about to open); alyssum - white (w/s), burgundy gaillardia (w/s last yr), and a cream color iris. Cut the iris on way to car to get to work this morning, and added to the others already on my desk.

I feel just like you Cybersunday, the interior of my house has been neglected and really needs a good cleaning. Spiders have been active this summer and I can't count the cobwebs I've swept up on walls and ceilings. For me, cleaning the garden in fall depends on the weather and the amount of time I have. I prefer to clean it up now because otherwise it's a massive job in spring and since I plant spring blooming bulbs, I find that it is more attractive when the garden is cleaned. For whatever reason, the leaves on the trees haven't fallen much yet and this will be another mammoth task as we have many trees on our property. I am like Glen and Bonnie as I have loads of potted tropicals and tender perennials throughout the garden. I started to bring the orchids and begonias inside for the winter and we've been kind of lucky because we haven't had frost yet so I have a few more days to cut back all those plants. Unfortunately, I can't save them all so I take cuttings of many tenders too. Although I too use to protect my plants, I haven't in the last 8 years. It is just alot of additional work and sometimes the end result wasn't worth the trouble. My philosophy is that if I have to protect plants with burlap or leaves, then they aren't intended for this climate. There are so many beautiful hardy plants that I can grow that I no longer bother with those that I know won't survive the winter.

I grow both deciduous and evergreen bearded iris. But none of them are that close to my roses. I usually just combine them in the vase. The deciduous have their leaves hang on till December, slowly yellowing. I yank them all off in mid- to late-January and they are growing again by the end of February. I use the evergreen iris as a foliage accent. I concentrate our garden on foliage combinations because I want it to look good all year long. Flower colors are used as accents that come and go throughout the seasons (which in CA are wet and dry, LOL). First, photos of the deciduous iris: March: the iris in the RH bottom corner, planted in a clump of evergreen iberis, are the deciduous. The iris in the middle, in front of the yellow euryops bush, are evergreen: April: the deciduous iris are in bloom. Pink spikes are heuchera, "Roseda" variety: November: the deciduous iris leaves are yellowing. The evergreen iris are dark purple, unknown variety. They also rebloom if conditions are right: All the next photos are the evergreen iris. I have 15 separate beds across our property and the evergreen iris are in every one. Their sword-like leaves and blue-green color make for great foliage contrast. With wild arum leaves, at the foot of a Japanese maple in autumn: In a shady north facing bed that lives on runoff. Back row is "Gold Dust" variegated aucuba. There's a hellebore stuffed in-between the iris and the aucuba: Iris foliage with "Copper Sunset" oxalis siliquosa (do NOT confuse this with the weed oxalis pes-caprae! O. siliquosa is a very nicely behaved, pretty groundcover). In the rear a yellow variegated plectranthus battles with a variegated alstroemeria. What I like about this combo is that it all looks good even when there are no flowers: Iris mixing nicely with a hellebore: Iris leaves setting off an red "Emperor One" Japanese maple, grape vine, and fern: Iris contrasts with "Full Moon" Japanese maple, scallop-leafed pelargonium, and fine-leafed euonymus: Iris and "Occold Gold" pelargonium: Iris foliage framing a brilliant fuchsia iresine, surrounded by yellow variegated plectranthus groundcover and a nearby hellebore: Following are two photos of the same bed. One is as if you were standing at ground level. The other is looking 16' down from my kitchen window. This is the only bed where what it looks like from above, is just as important as what it looks like at ground level. Iris clumps set off (L-R) dark-leaf pelargonium, coleonema, variegated euonymus, "Occold Gold" pelargonium, white-flowering pelargonium. Across the path, more iris sit in front of a young Meyer lemon standard, with a pink-flowering cestrum shrub in the far back: Same bed, from above: Hope the photos help!

I think I only have one- though I'm not sure yet about spuria iris. I bought a Siberian iris called "Ceaser's Brother" last year and it bloomed late this spring. The bloom turned out to be very pretty, and it lasted quite a while on the plant. I'm not certain how long it would last as a cut flower, but the deep royal purple was exquisite!