The Big Dig at the
Mesilla Valley Iris Society
STORY AND PHOTOS BY SCARLETT AYRES, NEW MEXICO
One week before the Mesilla Valley Iris Society
annual rhizome sale, club members come together over
Labor Day weekend in Las Cruces, NM, to clean the irises
they have dug out of their own gardens and label them
with name, price, type, and year introduced. It is an event
we call the “Big Dig.” The iris roots and leaves are trimmed,
then the rhizome is cleaned and lightly bleached. Cleaning
more than 1500 irises for the sale is a lot of work—but
many hands do make light work. Plus, this is a good time
for gossiping. Members work on the Big Dig about six
hours each day. Lunch is provided and in the past this
included home-grilled hamburgers, purchased pizza, and
pot luck. One year I brought fixings for English muffin
pizzas. Everyone made their own and nuked them for a
minute in the microwave. Club members who work the dig
can get any $2 iris free the and other irises at half price. Iris
prices vary from $2 to $7 depending upon year introduced.
It is also a good time to find out what grows well: “You
must take this iris; it reblooms all the time in my garden.”
Previously, members would place the trimmed rhizomes
on a large screen and spray them with water. They would
then transfer the irises to a large bucket where they would
be scrubbed before being transferred to bleach water.
This led to muddy feet and sore backs and shoulders from
bending over the buckets for hours. Past President Wes
Wilson created a cleaning station that made cleaning irises
much easier.
The new method developed by Wes involved using
reclaimed sinks (one dual sink and one single sink), lumber,
PVC pipes, garden hoses, spray wands and saw horses to
create a cleaning station of three sinks that would drain
into nearby bushes so feet are kept nice and dry. A garden
Howie Dash, Lily Rawlyk, and Dale Ellis clean
rhizomes at the iris cleaning station.
hose is hooked up to the contraption so that each sink has
its own spray hose. The whole setup is placed on some
sawhorses and can be transported easily by two people
and a truck.
The setup is not pretty but it is functional. It will never
be featured on HGTV. The whole contraption is meant
to be disassembled and stored away for future use. Most
everything except the PVC pipes, spray wands, and some
of the hoses are reclaimed, so the cost of the system is
minimal. Most people thought this setup was much easier
on the back and the sneakers, though the dual sink proved
to be a little too close for comfort for some people. The
couple that worked at the dual sink ended up spraying
each other quite a bit. However, the temperature was in
40 AIS Bulletin Fall 2018