I have never had to stage an intervention in my garden before, but I need to now. There is a plant that is out of control and taking over a small garden space. The plant is the exquisite Siberian iris. It starts as a small clump and before you know it, becomes many clumps. In two years, what used to be my zinnia garden is now an iris garden, thanks to this prolific plant.
The dark blue blooms last about ten days and they are an amazing sight. Then the flowers turn into seed pods. After a while, the pods open up, allowing countless seeds to fall out. How many seeds? Probably at least a few dozen in each pod, and there are many pods, so the chances of new iris stalks popping up the following spring are excellent!
I hadn’t noticed this rapid expansion until this spring. It has taken two years for these plant to multiply, but the small garden where I had planted zinnias three years ago is now choked with iris stalks. They are thick and hard to remove. If I want to plant anything else in this spot, I will have to remove some of the iris. But don’t worry, there will be plenty more appearing next year.