If I were you, I'd dig the bed as soon as any danger of a late frost is passed, disentangle the iris rhizomes from the grass, dig all the grass out of the bed, amend the bed, and replant the irises (or move them to another location altogether, if you prefer). Ordinarily, digging an iris bed in early spring will interrupt the bloom cycle, resulting in a lack or significant decrease in bloom for the current year. However, if your iris bed is that old and the irises are overrun with grass, it's unlikely that you'll be seeing much bloom, anyway. Your irises will be better off if you rescue them now and give them all season to settle back in and grow for next year's bloom.

Bearded irises (assuming that's the type of irises we're talking about here), grow from rhizomes, not bulbs, and would not be treated the same as bulbous irises. You can find instructions for digging, dividing, and replanting bearded irises in the FAQs (link at top of forum page).

Your irises are salvageable. That's the good news. Now get to work! :-)

Laurie

Thanks so much Laurie for replying and sharing your thots.

I don't intend to plant them in the same spot as I'm planning to *grass* much of this area. (With real grass as opposed to crab grass!). Likely I will plant them on the west side of the house (not far distant from where they presently are).

Whether they (Maybe Flag??) are bearded or not I'm unsure. Frankly I'd guess not. That said I only had a brief opportunity to see them in bloom as we were just moving in at that point. They certainly weren't prolific bloomers but considering their circumstances, that wasn't unexpected. :-))

I really don't care about the bloom (short term) - I'm more interested in getting things in good shape.

Will it make a difference if they are Bearded as opposed to Flag or whatever other kinds they may be?

I'll see if I can find a photo from last year to post for general ident purposes.

Thanks for the help.
Ciao Holly

There are many different types of irises, but beardeds are certainly the most commonly grown, so it's a good bet that's what you've got. Bearded irises are easily identified by the fuzzy "beard" at the top center of each of the three lower petals (falls) of the flowers. If you have any decent closeup pics of the flowers, it'll be easy to tell you whether or not they are bearded.

If you do have some other type of iris, the digging/diving/planting instructions would differ.

BTW, "flag" is not a specific type of iris. It's more of a nickname, if you will. Depending on the circumstance and person using the term, "flag" has been used to reference several different types of irises, including beardeds.

Laurie