I was staring out the kitchen window, looking at the jonquil patch beside the garden, and realized the jonquils, about to burst into flower, really need to be divided to continue thriving.

Not that this is the best time of year to be dividing things, but I decided they would like nice in the orchard, which just last year was a mess of multiflora rose, garlic mustard, and honeysuckle. The apple trees are still so small, it looks a bit stark. Nitro and I went down to the orchard, and decided that yes, the jonquils would look lovely, but I should rally plant some iris first as a backdrop, as the iris grow taller. My inspection also revealed that the deer have finally discovered the tasty apple buds. On a mature tree the deer are not a problem. But if there are only a dozen buds on the tree in the first place, the deer can eat the whole thing. Apples will stump-sprout, but as they are all grafts…the fruit will not be tasty.

My work cut out for me, I went out to a field by a former farmstead, where the feral iris are thriving in a myriad of colors amidst the brome grass and occasional big bluestem, and dug two up two five-gallon buckets of rhizomes. Once they were all cleaned up they yielded 70 plants.

Into the ground they went, and then, just as the rain was starting, I fenced the trees. Definitely not good enough to be a permanent deer barrier-I supplemented my metal fencing with previously cut thorny debris, including multiflora rose and black locust branches. But it will save the trees for a little while longer. Here we are, two weeks later, and I realized the jonquils…still haven’t been divided. A project that will just have to wait until fall, which they will prefer anyway.