Iris wrap-up

This is the time of year when we are done planting, at least in zone 4-5, and just cleaning & checking on our Iris. I have found 5 Iris with 'stinky smelly rhizome rot (SSRR) in this past week or so. They are all pretty much in separate Beds so I don't think it's bacterial or may spread~ but ??? We've (MN) had 6-8" of rain this last month so hope this may be the reason. Early detection and Comet have saved all of them so far...

S

If you've had 6-8 inches of rain this month, it's time to try siberians, LOL.

Or any great beardless

D

LOL

THAT is what I'm looking forward to doing Polly! :o) I told my DH that I don't have anymore 'Irises' arriving in the mail. 'Beardless'
Iris aren't 'real' Iris right? He has been understanding through these last months... probably approaching Sainthood. Too much fun!

S

Beardless absolutely do not count. LOL

OH no never do the beardless count in counting the iris that our husband are looking at...LOL

Got one of the beardless orders in yesterday, now 3 more to go...

Digging 4 more rows today, planted thru the letter C on the little guys...today will trim and get ready many iris for the sale....on Sat and continue trimming.

D

These are the places I am waiting for now
Redbud Lane
Eartheart
Ensata Gardens
and a gift

i still have iris come in the mail too.hope its not to late to plant them?

No, Dori, you're fine. Just plant them as soon as you get them.

If 3 days of pouring rain would stop, I might get some planted and dug. Pouring again today.

polly-what are you dug up?

I'm digging and dividing beardless irises.

Send your pouring rain here. We have had some rain, but need more, of course. Siberians are looking better than the bearded at the moment.

polly.you can send your leftover to me....lol

Thanks for the offer, Dori, LOL. I sell out each year, so no leftovers though :(

i now that a was picking on yeah.

Maybe next year, you can come up and help me divide, and take some home?

a deal polly

Stop at my garden and take some of mine, too.

oh mittsy.ok if i have to....lol

feast or famine here........7 inches of rain in the last 36 hrs...........soaks right into the Sahara like sand......runoff has filled my ponds and broke our 100 degrees heat wave, what a miserable summer we had.
I am so looking forward to and hoping for an early fall. Have lots of new iris waiting in small pots to get into the ground as soon as new roots are fully formed. Really muggy and humid today but a good day to do some weeding and adding compost, I am on my way out the door.

I know ( or think I know) , I have a couple of more (internet) orders of iris to yet come in......I swear I can't remember from whom and wasn't smart enough to write it down and I (think) some of the ones my pastor wanted were in the orders. Age and mental decline have truely got me.

I have Immortality blooming its head off , just like it did last fall! There is another one a tri color Heaven's something, that is doing great as far as fall blooms go.

A late August freeze clobbered my corn once again. So I ripped out all of the stalks and put in an entire bed of bearded iris from Schriener's. DH helped me prep the bed, but he is quite concerned that I "didn't plant them deep enough". It's tough for newbies like us to look at those bare naked rhizome tops. :-O

u will be sooo glad u did..sry bout ur corn, hard to loose something u hve worked hard 4

Sorry about the corn. You all have to realize that irises rhizomes are stems, not bulbs. Once you are comfortable with that, all falls into place. Congrats on doing a proper planting.

I finally finished digging my irises. I have 494 rhisomes for the locals iris society sale this Sat., 98 varieties. Iris grow like weeds in all this Arizona sun. I actually have some 2007, 8, and 9's available. They are going to be a steal. We got some good advertising in the paper so I hope we have a great sale.

Good luck on the sale.

I wrapped up my iris planting year by ordering from the Pacific Northwest Iris Growers co-op. Now I have 8 more irises coming to plant. I would have gotten more, but others have quicker fingers than I do. LOL.

I got:
Abiqua Falls
Aristocracy
Astro Blue
Blue Rising
Bubbling Waves
Cast A Spell
Disguise
Grape Expectations

Hi Polly -- I also ordered Disguise -- thought it was beautiful. I ordered three of them in order to get a good show next Spring or the year after. I would have liked to order others, but I just finished my Iris bed (well, almost) for the year and really would like to call an end to it. But that Disguise was too pretty not to have.............(sigh) and that's how I get into trouble with these danged plants -- LOL.

Polly, you did better than I....I had slow fingers too

All we have had is rain, and more rain this year, now snowing in parts of the state.

Rain, Rain, Rain, ........ Come this way!!! We haven't had a drop of rain in over a month. And we've had one of the hottest summers on record. Yesterday it was 95 again. My sand is turning to powder!!!

We've had a whole .06 in Sept. and it's supposed to be 102 today.

Gee, we haven't had a drop since April -- I don't think I can even remember what rain sounds like! LOL...

Rain? Did someone say rain? We could so use some here - was 108° today and will be as well for the next couple days - BOO! I am so impatiently waiting for fall...

Wellllllll, the downfall here is grasshoppers, big as toad frogs ( I exaggerate just a bit) but truely they are eating the swords off the iris right down to the rhizomes. ( this has happened in the past and the rhizs survived to put out new fans in the spring) .....Thousands of them and as of yet we in this area have not found a product that will kill the grown ones.....even stripped the leaves off the almond trees and the covering that grow over the almonds exposing the nuts and killing them, prior to the GHs moving in it looked like the best crop ever for the almond her....not now!

How terrible! I have noticed, we a a few very big hoppers jumping out of my way now, that's very unusual for our area this time of year. Here's hoping someone will come up with a way to kill off these pests for you and your neighbors. What a pain.

That just makes one 'heartsick'! I have never heard or even thought about grasshoppers being that destructive! Locust maybe....or are they the same? I'm so sorry, Sharon!

They are not always this bad, but one summer here, they ate the stuff the screens are made of (some sort of plastic fiber) off the doors and windows..no exaggeration

Well, we had our sale. It reminded me of the old Mervin's add, "Open, open, open". I hadn't even gotten all the pictures out and the customers were everywhere. We sold out in an hour and a half. We had 800 rhisomes, 500 were from my garden. I've never seen anything like it. Goes to show the importance of advertising.

What you need is DDT. When I was a child, my brothers and sister and I would play next to the gravel driveway where mom and dad had planted some irises they had brought back from Oregon. They were both born in Oregon. Daddy would get out him pump sprayer, you have to be old to remember what one looks like.

Anyway, we would be crawling around or sitting around and he would spray over our heads at the grasshoppers. We did not die but the grasshoppers did. And he also had a blow torch and in some areas he would burn them but I do not think your irises would like that.

I am so sorry Sharon because you have beautiful irises for a beautiful person and you would think mother nature would send you a prettier bug.

Love you guys, Sharon

PS. Think we have enough Sharons in the iris forum?

I too remember DDT with the pump sprayer and we used it inside too, and coal oil (naptha) for our cuts and scrapes. And still in more recent years Malathion that poisoned many a gardener. And as for a blow torch we would need a forest fire to really get them..

I also remember skin cooking in the outside sun without protection, I have had childhood sunburns so bad you couldn't lay back in a chair or stand to have clothes touch you.That might explain why cancer is so rampant now. We have learned a lot about health care and chemicals in the last 50 years. I would be willing to bet in generations to come they will find something we are doing right now is causing serious illnesses. ( I am thinking maybe flour, sugar, salt).....Like the Romans eating from lead dishes.


The darn grasshoppers sure make a mess of things, but they don't kill the iris just eat the fans off, sure makes them ugly but they will come back next spring. They make a mess of the hibiscus, turkscap and the canna as well, but seemingly with no permanent damage