Today my DH and I went to our daylily and iris society's "dig". That's when you prep all of the flowers for the the collector's sale - the major fundraiser for the society.
We loved it - and not just because we were the youngest folks there! The members running the dig are so incredibly knowledgable about gardening, it's like getting a private lesson from a Master Gardener. My DH was especially thrilled to see an actual iris borer worm. I'm not so sure I would have been as thrilled - aside from it being a worm, it digs into the iris rhizome and eats it so the flower dies. Nope, don't think I would like that at all.
Having not been on a dig for the society before, we thought that we would be, well, digging. That's not what happens though. It made sense to us. What collector would want strangers in their gardens digging and stomping around the beds after they'd spent thousands of dollars on them? I know we wouldn't!
We cleaned up the iris and daylilies that had been dug up by the garden owners, sorted them by size and cultivars (type), labeled them and bundled them up so they were all ready to be sold this coming week.
It takes many hands and quite a few hours to get everything in order for the collector's sale. And since they have different flowers for sale each year, the displays for the tables have to be prepared as well. Fortunately, the long-time members of the society have done this many times, so they were able to teach us the ropes - or in my case, put me on a task where I couldn't do too much damage.
I got to make labels and tear off strips of tape. They said it was because I had really good handwriting. I'm going to have to think about that a little bit more before I believe them!
All in all, about 500 plants were prepped for the sale - and this is the small sale, the big one isn't for a few weeks.
Now all I have to do is get my wallet prepped, because I saw some beautiful irises and daylilies that need a good home...
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