On a walk through of my flower beds I am seeing the daylilies and iris up, as well as the few tulips I put in last fall. Also, yarrow is back, I am seeing my purple and white coneflowers (transplants from a neighbor last year) poking little reddish shoots up, my potted blueberry bush is getting buds along the branches, my roses are putting up a bit of new growth, and one of my ornamental grasses has some green on it. On our enclosed deck my potted hostas, hydrangeas, and miniature roses are all coming back to life. And an asiatic lily that I bought last summer on clearance in a 3" inch pot, and then subsequently forgot all about and I assumed it was dead, got carried in by mistake when my kids helped me carry in the tender perennials and such. I meant to throw it away several time but kept forgetting. I noticed yesterday it is sending up new shoots! I have no idea how that thing survived my neglect. Nature is amazing! I wanted to put tons and tons of bulbs in my beds, but the drought we experienced here last summer and fall left the ground like cement. We couldn't even bust into it with a pickaxe. So we couldn't get bulbs in the ground. :-( Maybe this year I can!

No gophers in MA, but many woodchucks which are MUCH larger. Voles like eating bulbs and tubors. Chipmunks borrow holes, but are usually nut or berry eaters. Mice, grey or brown like bird seeds, and nest in soft things like stuffed lawn furnature. Rabbits love chewing on any greens of any kind. Of course deer also can even eat whole peaches off the trees. Squirrels are usually nut eaters too, as they also like taking bird food, especially sunflower seeds. Around here, there are also a few red squrrels, lots less compared to the grays. Also a few black squirrels. I have one black with a bad eye, only sees me when itse facing in the right direction. When I planted my saffron crocus, I made a big 1/4 holed wire basket with 6 inch tall sides to prevent burrowing. Also added abrasive pellets that the diggers hate to dig through. This stuff surrounds the crocus bulb area. My ffruit trees also have 1/4 inch wire screening as a wrap around at soil level. It helps prevent girdling by rabbits, which can chew all the tender bark off trees very fast. I also have moles out there, but they seem to go after worms mostly.

If you don't mind them not blooming this year early spring is the best time to transplant growing iris. I have been digging iris from my Aunt's long neglected iris bed. These have been over taken by grass and small trees. This is my 3rd year to work on this project. There are hundreds of iris plants in this bed. I can transplant even the smallest this time of year and most will survive. This is not the case if I try to move them in the heat of early summer. Almost all of the very small ones will die in the heat.

The United States is an awfully big place with all sorts of climates and weather. I'm willing to bet all but a few odd and fussy ones could be grown someplace. The bearded iris lineages are so intertwined, outcrossed and linebred and back again unless you have something really old or a genuine species you'd never really be able to say what you have. SIGNA gallery is a good idea. Most of the pictures are contributed from folks in the US with a small smattering of people from Europe. I'll give it a shot Beardeds I'm going lump. I've got one Arilbred, several dwarfs, lots of historics and a few moderns. Most of the bloodlines are probably going to be in there someplace. I've got a species or near species ensata and a few hybrids. iris crisata iris siberica and several cultivars of it Iris versicolor and several cultivars a speicies cross of versicolor and virginica called robusta, maybe two don't remember what the species cross is on one, guess it would be another robusta, charles darby? One lonely little clump of psued that I can easily keep tabs on in the back of a veggie garden I had a couple louisianas at the other house but looks like my husbands stepdaughter's kid has mashed them into oblivion. Between the kid and the dogs looks like most of the landscaping has been mashed or chewed.