To mulch or not to mulch????

After dealing with iris borers' I don't know whether to mulch my iris' or not. There in a mixed border. Kim

When you clear weeds, look for borer pupae. they are brown. Clear away winter mulch in the spring.

I've had to pot up a lot of my irises while I'm waiting for the City of Dallas (or, as Groucho Marx called it, 'Dollars') to replace my sidewalk and that also will entail digging up the parkway. Since I have 3 large oak trees I also have a lot of squirrels. Seemed like every time I went outside I'd find another iris rhizome on the ground instead of in the pot. So I lightly dusted the pots with cedar mulch and the little rodents have left my irises alone. Now they've moved on and are digging other plants. Gotta get out the mulch again. Maybe they don't like the feel of the mulch under their little rodent feet. Dunno. But I definitely would not heavily mulch irises, at least not in my climate.

just enough to bother them? Good!

Great trick! I'll try it too. TY

Well, hate to say it but I'm only having moderate success. The smaller pots seem to be targeted more. But the good thing is that the iris rhizomes are starting to take root enough so they're still in the pots and not on the ground. Went outside about an hour ago (we've had a lot of rain, yea!, so hadn't been out for a few days) to check on everything. I swear. If it ain't tied down, those nasty little rodents will work at uprooting stuff just to see if they might want to bury acorns there.

I'm not saying the mulch doesn't help. You just have to be vigilant.

Are the [pots small enough to be able to cover them with hardware cloth? Smaller mesh than chicken wire.

The smallest pots are (I think) the 4" size. I have so many pots of diff. styles and sizes, thank you garage sales, and then I place the smaller plastic ones in larger clay pots so they don't blow away.

When I went to the local Iris Society's annual plant sale, a lot of the friendly people were throwing odds and ends in my bag. So I have a number of little rhizomes potted individually, all by their lonesomes, so to speak. And those are the ones that the squirrels go after the most. If a pot of any size is crowded with rhizomes, it's usually left alone.

Not sure how one would cover with mesh. Mine have some of the leaves still on, but I guess if yours don't have any greenery, mesh would work. Actually sounds kinda good. Maybe I'll trim mine some and try it.

You could make a "dunce cap" shape from the hardware cloth. That might work...arlyn

Dunce cap for me or the squirrels? :D

wire one for squirrels; paper one for you if you want to match.

LOL !!Arlyn

ROTFL what a hoot

We put pine needle mulch on the irises which were planted this year to prevent heaving. Wait until the ground freezes.