“What could be so hard about painting some tires?” you ask? Certainly not the painting itself. Tire, roller, paint, right? Well, yes and no. First, research the proper steps for painting tires, so that in three months, or a year, the tires are still painted. Then, go to the paint store, choose a color, buy the paint in the correct quantity (more on that later), bring it home, and prepare to paint. I chose a light, slightly beige color that I thought would be least likely to draw your eye away from the gorgeous blooms... Turns out that color is called “Rice Cracker” and is quite similar to the color known as “bisque” to anyone who has been sink shopping in the last twenty years.
So, home I schlepped with my five gallons of Rice Cracker paint. To keep you from enjoying the many stages of this endeavor in real time, I’ll list them as steps.
1. wash tires, let them dry
2. create area to paint tires where paint slop (unavoidable) can be contained
3. find appropriate drop-cloth like materials (turns out to be a large cardboard box, in this case)
4. move tires, paint, roller handle, and high-nap roller to appropriate area (out of sun, out of wind)
5. open cardboard box with sneaking premonition that a brown recluse spider will be inside
6. find actual brown recluse spider inside.
7. grab camera; snap photo:
8. leave area for a while, as willies abate
9. return with dampened roller, pry lid off paint can
10. re-mix paint
11. lay out tires on opened, flat cardboard
12. paint!
There’s a long exposition on getting paint into the grooves of the tires, but not creating too many runs, and then where to put them to dry so they don’t stick to the surface and/or get dirty. I will skip that part, as you can imagine me finding the perfect, elegant solution and employing it with panache and grace. Ahem.
Presto, two hours later, I have ten tires just about dry enough to move to the location where they are destined to house my patient but kind of wilty-looking early-bloomers. That leaves me time to prep the area!
Roll out the weed-block cloth, put the pallet with the kiddie pool in what I’m guessing to be the center of the area, fill the kiddie pool with the luscious, imported planting soil I bragged about in the last blog, and suddenly, it’s time to see if those tires are dry enough to move!
OK, you may have guessed there’s a bit more to it than that. I skipped the part where I cleared the ground of weeds beforehand, mounted the kiddie pool to the pallet and put in drainage holes, roughed out the area the tires would occupy before grabbing the scissors to cut the final dimensions of the weed cloth, etc. But I’m trying to keep this snappy and engaging, so if it seems more like a cooking show than a gardening blog, well, guilty as charged.
I’m somewhat tempted to describe each step, as creating even simple gardens takes far more work than most people anticipate. Knowing that I’m putting all my early-bloomers into a kiddie pool surrounded by tires makes it seem like the rest is just soil and planting. On the one hand, elucidating the hours of preparation required before soil is moved in seems like the fair and honest thing to do. On the other hand, it might seem a bit tedious, and make it seem like I’m looking for, at best, a gold star, and at worst, sympathy.
Allow me to say, then, that the prep work not shown on cooking shows is quite similar in scope and time to the prep work not listed here. Area, clean-up, measurements, arranging of physical assets, designing which iris go into which containers, choosing paint colors, buying all the paint equipment... Let’s put it this way: I have learned to never believe anything that claims to have only three easy steps!
Nonetheless, it felt like I was getting close to planting time, so I filled a kiddie pool halfway with water, and soaked the rhizomes in anticipation of getting them into real soil sometime soon. I schlepped the ten tires to the area they would call home for the next two seasons, and discovered my earlier measurements were spot on. (Measure twice, cut once applies to gardening, too!)
My darling husband (thank you, dear!) assisted me in rolling out the wire mesh, cutting it to the right sizes, and laying out the tires. Now, surely, planting was imminent!
So I proceeded to load the wheelbarrow with soil, bring it to the site, and fill in each tire with far more soil than I anticipated. Still plenty of soil there, though, so that was ok. I managed to get them all filled, and all the soaked rhizomes planted in just a few hours. The kiddie pool is still unplanted, which is the opposite order in which you would normally want to execute this layout, but the iris that are going into the kiddie pool are not only an early-bloomer, but also a re-bloomer (Stairway to Heaven) and threw out a bud the day before I was going to separate and plant them.
In order to not hold up the rest of the early-bloomers, I opted to work out of order, and I will plant the kiddie pool after the blooming is done. I consider this re-bloomer to be the inspiration to continue this project, and a kind of reward for how much work I have put into it so far. Seeing these gorgeous blooms are the reason for all this effort, and if anyone asked for a sign that this is worth it, here it is:
Stairway To Heaven ( Larry Lauer, R. 1992). 1993 Seedling L87-48-3. TB, height 40" (102 cm).
Early to midseason bloom. Standards creamy off-white; Falls medium blue undertoned lavender; beards white; slight fragrance.
“Edith Wolford” X “Breakers”. Cottage 1993.
Honorable Mention 1995; Award of Merit 1997; Wister Medal 1999; American Dykes Medal 2000.
I am in no hurry for this to finish blooming... I can wait to separate and plant her, no rush.
In the meantime, I have all ten tires filled with rhizomes, and weed-preventer as my already-planted beds and kiddie pools sprouted hundreds of tiny weeds within two days of being planted... let the games begin, ha ha... ? This is the result thus far. Just imagine that pool is filled with Stairway to Heaven, and the picture will be complete.
So after that, I’m done.
Ha ha ha haha, ahhh ha ha haha... Not even close. I still have to design and install the drip irrigation. I have to finish the layout database (because name tags get separated from planters... it just happens). I have to weed. And feed. And monitor progress. Also, I have the better part of a five-gallon can of paint in this color...and you know I’ll end up painting more tires.
And, as I discovered to my surprise, I have probably two dozen more named iris in my yard that I am interested in adding to this project, to create the riot of color I so enjoy seeing in other people’s gardens. The process starts all over again: which ones to put where; what area to use; what layout will best show off their beauty; what materials will be needed. It’s going to be a ton of work. I can’t wait.
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