Gonna rain here again this weekend. Lord knows we need plenty more rain, but it would be nice if it would fall during the work week. Even so, I think I'm going ahead and start potting stuff up, unless we get a deluge that absolutely saturates the ground.

Advice and opinions, please.

1. Although it is absolutely the wrong time of year, I am going to be digging up peonies, of which I have several varieties. A few of them have been in place for 8 or 9 years, but most of them I divided, transplanted, or was gifted with divisions within the last 1 to four years. Think they will withstand being dug up in spring without being set back from bloom for more than a year? And should I go ahead and divide any with significant root mass (it doesn't take long to get root mass with peonies, you know,)as it will be much easier to pot them up and move them, or should I try to dig out the whole plant? Even the late peonies are up to about a foot, and it is going to be hard to dig them without breaking a lot of the stems. I'm concerned about preserving enough of the stems to sustain the plants through the summer. I don't think dormant eyes will sprout to compensate, but don't know that for sure.

2. Bulbs.

a. I'm not going to fool with digging the common hybrid tulips. But I have a number of species tulips and heirloom daffs that are expensive to replace, and some sort of heirloom hyacinth or scillia that was here when I moved, I haven't been able to conclusively identify, and that I have not found in any catalogs. I'm thinking I will go ahead and dig them now, while I know where and what they are, and pot them up. If I wait until they are dormant, I'll lose track of what is what. Think that will work? I also have a number of lilies that are very well established. None of them are rare, but lily bulbs are expensive. However, I have read that large lily bulbs do not do well if dug up and transplanted - that there is an optimum size for transplanting (what you get when you order #1 size bulbs) and that larger bulbs don't do so well. Any of you have experience with this?

Unrelated to the above, but more related to this thread, I have had problems with earwigs that I think were a present included with a dump trunk load of otherwise beautiful compost I got a few years ago. (They even chew on daffodils - it took looking at the blooms by flashlight to figure that one out.) My heavy use of leafmold for mulch also promotes earwigs. In one garden bed I have problems with a fungus that I suspect was brought in with a load of horse manure. Although there are some favorite plants in that bed that were gifts and/or pass-alongs from dear gardener friends, I am not going to bring any of those plants with me. In addition, I have bunches of maximillan sunflowers that have been hit with something that may be disease or may be fungus (whatever it is, it has slammed these sunflowers all over town in the last few years.) I won't be potting up any of these, or passing them along. Have any of you had experience with insect infestations or pathogensbrought in by organic soil amendments?