Thats great. I,m still in the planning a couple of new beds stage. It will be fun seeing your pictures. Don,t put any manure in the beds it will encourage root rot.

Rita, I've read that you can mulch iris with pine needles, as they do not get wet and hold water and cause rot. The article said to remove the pine needle mulch first thing in spring.

But if your taking off the mulch in the spring when all the weeds start whats the point in having it in the winter? That confuses me.

Its done. Turned out GREAT!!!!! I am so pleased. Now to let the soil settle and in the meanime I can try and figgure out spacing. I took lots of pictures and will post thenm as soon as I get a chance.

Here come the pictures-

This looks like a good location.

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Looking from the front of the yard, it still looks like a good spot.

First level walls done.

Checking to see how it looks from towards the front looking back.

I wanted a 3 foot square inside the 7 foot square to make it a double tier bed.

Needs more soil to fill it.

DONE!!!

And heres the view from the top of the backyard. This should turn out fantastic.

Thats great. I love the idea of the higher square in the center.

Can you use the black fabric groundcloth with iris? It lets water and air through so would not encourage rot, and would stop weeds. But you would have to check on it and maybe widen the openings to accommodate the new rhizomes.

The bed looks great! And you still have room for more of them.

I put the higher square in the center just to add some interest to the look of the bed. I like raised beds and tiered gardens, I have lots of them thru the yard.

I have plans to put in another bed, but not raised like this one, in that section of lawn by the inground potted tree. Hope to get going on it this fall. For now, I have other garden proiects going and I will have all my iris to plant in July.

What iris did you buy to go in there?

I bumped up my post from late May that lists all the iris I ordered.

I have plenty of time to think about it as iris only coming in July but first go round of putting in sticks to space out distances to plant iris gives me 36 iris in the outside bed, not counting the smaller middle square.
I started by putting a marker every sixteen inches all the way around the square near the outside edge. That gives me a run of six going along each edge but since saying six counts the courners twice, it really is 20 markers if I just count them indivually. Then 3 along each square second row and four more in the corners were there is extra space. Comes to 36.

Is that putting them about a foot apart?

No, 16 inches apart. I have to look at this and try to immagine those little marker sticks as iris plants.

Thats alot of room for iris to increase. I also like the idea that you can mark the inside of the frame with the name of each plant if you want. I have had problems with vanishing markers. The more I think about it the more I think I might need one of these beds. Would you mind if I borrow your idea?