I am very new to this forum so please forgive me if I make a mistake in this posting.

Many years ago while walking my daughters to elementary school an elderly neighbor approached me while walking home. She said she was dividing (separating) her iris's and and would I care to take some home for my garden.

It was rather pleasant she invited me to tea in her garden and explained how her late husband's grandfather who was a Botanist had created this variety of iris back in Russia before the family had to leave the country for political reasons. She mentioned he was a (going from memory of the conversation) a Royal Botanist. She also said these are very rare iris and they should do very well in your garden. "They will fill your spring with beauty and your life with happiness". She conveyed they were smuggled out of Russia. We hugged and she sent me on my way and I never saw her again.

For many years these iris's more or less have taken care of themselves. Providing spectacular blooms over the years.

About two years ago we bought a Jacuzzi hot-tub and built and enclosure which is blocking about 80% of the sun this Iris bed used to receive. Naturally the Iris bed did not do too well this year.

I have not a green thumb and we have a bed available within the same sun position in our yard. I am terribly afraid I will kill these plants if I transplant them incorrectly or at the wrong time. I recall she gave them to me in September and I planted them that day.

When this wonderful lady passed on her gardens were in great neglect and the new owners of her property stripped the gardens and replanted. Who knows what was destroyed. I never had the chance to ask her about dividing or anything else. In retrospect I should have gave a visit now and then but raising my children somehow got in the way.

My daughters are in college now, to give some idea of how long this bed has been in place.

Having looked at every possible image of Iris's I have not come across anything like these anywhere on the web.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

With my best regards,

Wendy

Grosse Pointe Farms Michigan

Are they Siberian Irises? I would imagine so, if they came from Russia. Can you post a photo of these irises? There are some experts here who might be able to tell you what you have there.

If they are Bearded Irises, now is the perfect time to transplant them, and they are simple to plant. You simply dig them up, trying not to destroy all of the roots, divide the rhizomes and throw away any that have no leaves on them, and replant the rhizomes about a foot apart in the new bed, with the top of the rhizome exposed. I dig a shallow hole, put a little mound of dirt in the middle, and spread the roots over the mound of dirt, then fill the hole. Then I tug the leaves until the top of the rhizome is fully exposed.

Someone else will chime in with advice for Siberian irises. Sorry- don't know a thing about them.

Renee