No loss or rot on protected irises!

What a difference a year makes! Last year I was so frustrated to find that most of my beautiful, newly planted irises succumbed to rot over the winter. I was about to give up, but Schreiner's offered me a replacement, and I got a lot of good advice from you people. I was guessing that maybe deer were stomping the rhizomes, injuring them and causing rot. Especially in the late winter freeze/thaw/freeze weather we had. So last fall I caged all of my new plantings so they would be likely to avoid walking on them, and this spring I can't believe how healthy everything looks! There was one loss, which kind of proves my theory, because it was just barely outside of a protective hoop/cage, and could have been stepped on. It looked just like my whole bed did last year. I used bent wire fence panels and when I ran out of them, broken plastic garden chairs that were headed to the dump.
Of couse another factor could have been the weather; we had a deep snow cover all winter and then it all melted quickly at the end of winter.

Great for anti deer & snow cover.