Good morning! Well, we can’t deny it anymore. The ads for pick-your-own apples are everywhere as are the school buses. Fall is upon us and the end of gardening season is quickly arriving. Try to take a last, good shot at those weeds that have done so very well with all the rainfall.

Early September is, however, still a good time to do many things in the garden.

I am starting on a new adventure and thought you might like to come along.

I have never grown irises and my friend Garrick, who is lifting and dividing his long-standing iris beds, has offered to share some of the bounty. I have long admired them, just haven’t planted them. I went online and compiled information from five extension and gardening websites. I thought some of you might like to try growing these beautiful flowers and, perhaps, I have gleaned some tidbits that could be helpful to even those of you who have always grown irises. So, here we go. …

The iris, a perennial, is very easy to grow, according to experts. There are two basic kinds: bearded and plain. And this flower boasts more than 200 varieties, including miniatures at about 8 inches in contrast to others than can reach 3 feet.

Irises grow from a rhizome, a cross between a root and a bulb, that is planted even with the top of the soil. They prefer sunshine and moist but well-drained soil, which means soil with a lot of compost. They can be planted into September as long as they have six to eight weeks to anchor themselves. They need to be well established to get through winter so mulching the first winter is advised, but only if the mulch is removed immediately after the snow is gone. The rhizomes need sunshine to flourish. Several websites recommend an inch or two of sand covered with pine boughs, but this needs to be removed when the forsythia blooms — an easy reminder, perhaps.

Irises normally bloom in June, but hybridizers have introduced a new bearded iris that reblooms, depending on the variety, from July into October. If you have a friend who will share, this is probably a good way to get started because rhizomes can be quite expensive. Experts recommend buying them online or from a catalog from iris farms and not in packages from big discount stores. You could loose at least half of the packaged rhizomes, they say, because they have been out of the soil for too long.

Irises do not like wet soil in winter and will rot. Good drainage is key as well as at least six hours of sun. They need to be fertilized in early spring with an all-purpose product that is scratched in around, but not on, the rhizomes. Consistent watering during a drought is recommended.

When irises have finished blooming, the stems should be cut off, but the leaves should be left to grow the rest of the summer. The leaves are making food for the rhizome just as daffodils and tulips do. Any unhealthy or diseased leaves should be removed.

Every website I read stressed one point, over and over — watch for iris borers. This bugger,which starts out as a dark brown moth shaped like an A, lays eggs on the plants in late summer. The eggs overwinter in the spent leaves; and the borers, which look like very tiny caterpillars, emerge in the spring. They eat the leaves, boring holes and working their way down to the rhizomes. If you can catch them at this stage, you can control them – hand pick and squash! If not, they make holes through the rhizomes. They leave vertical stripes on the leaves.

Irises need to be divided every three to five years or their blooms lessen. Dig up the entire clump, hose them off and check them for borer damage or rot. You can cut them into pieces for transplanting, so it sounds pretty easy to get rid of diseased parts. When you divide, each part to be replanted must have a fan of leaves, several inches of rhizome and good roots. It is at this point that you cut the leaves back to between one-quarter to one-third their original height. Dig a shallow hole in the ground you have prepared and make a cone in the middle. The rhizome will sit on the cone with its roots spread down the sides of the cone. Carefully fill in soil around the cone and barely cover the rhizome. I have noticed in iris beds that you can see the rhizomes in the soil with a majority of their tops exposed. Water them well.

At the end of the season and after the first hard frost, cut the leaves way back, remove any leaves that look yellowed and then mulch.

Oh, and here’s a bonus — deer don’t like iris. Yeah!

Anyway, this is the information I have collected. I know there are expert iris growers out there and I have likely left out lots of do’s and don’ts or great iris secrets, so please email me any info you would like to share. I will run it in the next column. Thanks ahead of time.

Until next time, I hope you enjoy the sunshine and get to pick some apples and make a pie. Feed the birds well for many will begin long journeys south for the winter.

Happy gardening.

Jody Goodwin has been gardening for more than 25 years. She lives in Turner with her husband, Ike, her dog and two cats. She may be reached by writing to her in care of the Sun Journal, 104 Park St., Lewiston, Maine, 04243-4400 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Iris calendar

Early spring: Check the plant and remove any old foliage to make way for new growth and help prevent iris borers from emerging. Remove mulch. Scratch in an all-purpose fertilizer around the plants, avoiding direct contact with the rhizome.

Mid-spring: Check leaves for signs of iris borers, which will appear as dark lines — and squash them. If there are too many, remove the leaf or leaves and deposit in the trash, not the compost pile.

Late spring and summer: Tall irises often need stakes and blooms need to be deadheaded to make way for new blossoms. When blooms are finished, cut the entire flower stalk to the base. Irises do not grow a lot during the height of summer (late June, all of July) so this is a good time (up until early September) to divide and transplant. Cut the foliage back during transplanting.