Relax, Deepti. If they are bearded irises, you haven't killed them. If they are a beardless type, though, they should be in buckets of water so that their roots won't dry out. Do you remember what the flowers looked like? Did they have fuzzy looking "beards" on the top center of each of the lower three petals? If so, they're bearded, and you have nothing to worry about.

From your description, it sounds like you're dealing with an extremely overgrown bed of bearded irises. When a bed has been neglected, the rhizomes will often grow on top of each other like that, and the layers can be pulled apart as you describe. You wouldn't be able to separate layers of beardless irises so easily. So let's work from the assumption that they are bearded irises.

Before the sun warms up your patio tomorrow morning, move that pile of rzs into the shade or into your garage where they will be out of direct sunlight. Hose the dirt off of the clumps so that you can see where they connect to each other. That way you'll be able to decide how you want to divide them for replanting. You can cut them apart into single rzs or into small clumps, whichever you prefer.

Since you have so many rzs and a limited amount of garden area, don't even bother with the leafless ones. They are the old mother rzs that may or may not still have enough energy to grow more babies. Regardless, you don't need to waste garden space on them when you have so many other rzs with foliage to replant. Choose your largest rzs with nice, healthy leaf fans to replant, but avoid the rzs that bloomed this year (you'll see the spent bloomstalk if the rz bloomed this year). Since this garden is new to you and gave you such minimal bloom this year, you don't have any way of knowing if the bed contains irises of just one color or has irises of different colors. For that reason, try to keep a couple of good rzs from each clump to replant.

There are always folks who love to receive free irises, and it sounds like you're going to have LOTS of extras to give away. The easy way is to offer them to friends, family, and neighbors. Once they've had their fill, you can put the others in paper bags or boxes on your curb and mark them "FREE IRISES". Chances are they won't be sitting on your curb for long. You can also offer them to your local garden clubs, Master Gardeners, and community gardens. I've even given away iris extras on Freecycle.

Go ahead and dig the whole bed out if you have the energy. It'll make it easier to amend the soil and replant at proper spacings. You've already seen what a mess irises turn into when they're overcrowded, so don't replant too closely. If you don't want to have to dig and divide every year, you should plant at least 18" apart.

As long as you keep the rzs dry and out of direct sun, they'll be fine for at least a couple of weeks out of the ground if it takes that long to get the rest of the bed dug and ready for replanting. You wouldn't want to replant them right away, anyway, because the cut wounds need several days to heal over before replanting.

Your task will be a lot less daunting once you separate the keepers from the giveaways. You don't even have to trim and divide the giveaways if you don't want to.

Just breathe, Deepti. You haven't made any mistakes so far. All's well.

Laurie

Deepti:
I don't know what kind of iris you have but mature bearded iris rhizomes are about the thickness of big toes (although some are smaller and some are larger). If your rhizomes are no thicker than say 1/2 inch diameter and are long and skinny you have some sort of beardless rhizome.
I don't know much about the beardless, but for the bearded, a 'mother' has bloomed and will not throw up another bloomstalk. The 'children' have not bloomed yet. If you select plump rhizomes, with a few shoots coming off of them and replant you can't go wrong. Don't break them into tiny pieces. Chances are you have way too many rhizomes to replant in the same bed. If they are bearded, you can wash and dry in the sun and they won't die. They can live this way for weeks if necessary, but its always better to replant as soon as you can. In fact since you have dug up the bed you might as well clean them well and examine for any borer (large holes) or rotten parts and discard the diseased pieces. Planting 2 feet apart is recommended by some, but I never do that, because I just would not have enough space for all my rhizomes. They can go closer together without a problem, although I know there will be people on this forum who will disagree.
I don't think it matters if you dig all and replant all at once or part at a time, but it seems easier to me to dig the whole bed then replant. That way you can dig deeply, add amendments like compost or sand or whatever is needed to make your soil fluffy and well drained.
Most important: iris are tough! They don't mind being yanked out, clipped apart and replanted. They will look pretty sorry for a few weeks, but then they will start sprouting green again.
Good luck,
Laetitia

I have little to add to the above. I normally find iris indistructable. I have divided clumps much like you, not knowing what to save & what not. Got the same advice & followed as best as I could, considering the mess it looked like I had. Planted what I kept, tossed the unwanted ones in the fence row in heavy shade where we dump old leaves & trimmings. Missed a few in the lawn. The follwing spring, had iris growing in the lawn, a nice bed where I planted, & some very nice iris growing in the fence row. Too shady for them to bloom, but they are still nice & healthy looking :) No matter what you plant, you'll have iris growing. If you make a mistake & keep a "mother" iris, it will still multiply & bloom a year later. Sometimes iris sulk anyway for a year & refuse to bloom, but you'll have plenty that you probably won't notice anyway. The following year watch out though!

I am so grateful for your help! I just finished dividing them (the first mound, not the rest of the bed). I think part of the scariness last evening was that I was pulling them out and slicing them in semi-dark, and it seemed like I was cutting flesh or something...

Unfortunately, the biggest, fattest, juiciest ones seem to be the mothers. Maybe I divided the leafed ones too small, but most of the saved ones have much smaller rz's.

I have two grocery paper bags full of good ones, and one full of mothers that I didn't have the heart to throw.

This evening I'll go back to digging the bed.

Can you tell me what sort of soil iris's like? Sandy, clayey, loamy, etc. I don't want to do a soil test, so some sort of general purporse low-nitrogen fertilizer?

Thanks again,
Deepti

Deepti,

If you don't want to do a soil test, then please don't add any fertilizer to your bed. It's waaaaay too easy to overfertilize and poison your plants and soil (something with which I am currently acquiring a regretable amount of experience). If you overfertilize, it could be many, many years before your soil will be safe for irises again. You can't take fertilizer out once you've added too much. Unless you're up for gambling with the health of your soil and everything planted in it, don't fertilize before you test.

Laurie

What kind of soil do you have? I think if you have clay, add something to 'lighten' it up: compost, humus or topsoil. I add stuff from the forest: rotted wood and leaves, if they are well decomposed. Add sand if your drainage is not good or your soil is hard to dig into. Till the soil well. The ideal situation is where the soil is easy to dig into. The roots grow better in that environment.
As for fertilizer, I disagree with Laurie a bit. I add alfalfa pellets, lime and/or low nitrogen bulb food. I have never tested my soil except for PH. If it is low I add lime. Since your iris have been growing in a small area for years and are quite overgrown, they have probably depleted the soil of its nutrients. I am not saying to do this randomly. Testing the soil is a very good idea, but I just have never gotten around to do it.
The key is moderation; don't over fertilize.
Laetitia

In my part of the country after you remove all the increase from the mother rhizome if you cut the mother rhizome in about 1 to 2 inch pieces and plant them most will put on new increase again if you want or need the plants. Lee Mincy(Extreme NE Mississippi)