Now that we have had the first hard frost, cleanup time begins. If this were a milder climate, cleanup would really be all year long. If this were a more severe climate, it would be more intense and then winter would be a breeze. Here, you could have a big winter cleanup, or you could do a little at a time throughout the winter. Fortunately, what you do stays until spring, for the most part. This weekend, I started with the irises.
Now irises have what I call their "Summer Leaves" which are long, and they have their "Winter Leaves" which are short tufts of leaves that last through the winter before they elongate and grow into the summer leaves with the new summer leaves. By this time of the year, the summer leaves get rather ragged, and I like to pull them off. You could wait until spring, when the the winter leaves start to grow. Or you could wait until each leaf turns brown and pull them off one by one throughout the winter. But to me, it looks neater through to do it all now. Of course I don't do it with all the irises. Some of them don't have many winter leaves, so I leave the ragged leaves on those.
The miniature irises do get rather ragged and have distinct winter leaves.
These were newly divided and planted this year.
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It's best to wear gloves when pulling off the leaves since the dry leaves can crumble into sharp bits that can lodge under the skin. It's also best to pull the leaves off the rhizomes instead of cutting them. It makes for a much cleaner result.
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This one is an older established clump. I'll have to divide it next year, as the rhizomes are starting to pile on top of each other.
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Ahhh....I feel much better now.
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