…with the iris. That one by the bridge had to be pulled before it shoved the bridge over—<\/p>\n
The roots\/rhizomes are about the size of large Irish potatoes, and getting in there…gasp…was a bear.<\/p>\n
I started modestly with clippers to take off the leaves on one side.<\/p>\n
I graduated to a spade, which I attempted to get underneath the clump and lift. No-(bleep)-way. It wouldn’t budge.<\/p>\n
I got the big mattock. This got a few out and began to break up the clump…or at least…5″ of it.<\/p>\n
I got the little mattock. This got a few more. I began to get to the center of it.<\/p>\n
Back to the big mattock, using it as a lever with my entire body weight…no joy. Wouldn’t even budge. <\/p>\n
I used the big mattock pick-end, and broke it up some more. I have now a mound of iris on the patio. I tried hooking the pick under the clump and pulling to try to break it up. I am in danger of a fatal accident, if that thing should give way totally—because I’m poised above the rock steps—but no joy. That thing ain’t moving. <\/p>\n
Finally I take after it with the pick, deciding mortality among the iris is better than my own—and broke it up enough I doubled the size of the pile. I got rhizomes out as thick as a man’s wrist. I have now gotten that one iris clump dealt with: we will pick three good rhizomes and replant.<\/p>\n
I still have the clump at the OTHER end of the bridge. This one took me 3 tries. Each time I would have to come in, cool down, and plan the next assault. It’s been about 4 hours, intermittently. I have a pile of iris to be trimmed and clipped. I think THAT will be my next project, and let the other one wait a bit, for one thing so we don’t mix the colors up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…with the iris. That one by the bridge had to be pulled before it shoved the bridge over— The roots\/rhizomes are about the size of large Irish potatoes, and getting in there…gasp…was a bear. I started modestly with clippers to take off the leaves on one side. I graduated to a spade, which I attempted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}