Irises: How do you buy your iris?, 0 by Wandasflowers

Wandasflowers wrote:
I have to get my bearded iris in the ground by early September. They need a good 6-8 weeks to root before the first frost hits. If I can get the rhizomes in by late June, I can get substantial growth from them by Fall & a better chance for Spring bloom. If I plnt them later, I only have mush in the spring. Alot of wasted work.

Most of my modern TB iris take 2-3 years to aclimatize and bloom. The dwarf iris babies usually bloom the next year--fast increases. Many of the modern TBs like to rot if I have a cold wet spring---2007 was a good example of it. Lots of loss even in established clumps. Some fancier cultivars were totally destroyed by the end of summer.

I grow MDB,SDB,IB,BB, MTB & TB in my gardens. I have best luck starting with at least two of each cultivar to start my clumps. Since I have alot of clay & clay likes to hold water, I plant my iris in a circle, facing in on top of an earthen mound. My 324 iris cultivars are in mixed beds with 340 daylilies, 200 + lily cultivars & 100 + other perennials. The higher planting of the iris clumps enables me to mulch the rest of the bed without endangering the bearded iris. I only water new plantings and let mulch conserve the moisture as well as smother weeds.

an 18 degree high for 3 days last April damaged many of the buds as they were forming. iris blooms were scarce on the most of the clumps, but the historics did the best. I spent much of the summer kneeling by iris clumps and using my trusty butcher knife to remove rotting rhizomes. By fall, I noted a marked increase in size and number of babies on my mother unbloomed rhizomes. If the snow ever melts here, I may have an interesting iris bloom year.