I'll get this straight eventually......

I have tall bearded, one louisiana and 1 japanese and a few siberian.

The louisiana can go in pond (wet soil) or just damp soil. The japanese like wet soil.

For all these iris. If you get one root, corm, or whatever, it will bloom (lets say in June) and then produce babies along the side. The mother root never blooms again, the babies mature until late summer and then you can transplant them and they will bloom next year.

Do I have this mostly right?
charlotte

LAs prefer wet soil. JI's prefer consistently moist soil but not waterlogged. Both want acid soil.

You are correct that once a rhizome blooms, it will not bloom again. Usually, the bloomed rhizome (mother) will produce increases along its sides. The increases will grow to maturity and eventually bloom. The time frame in which this occurs is dependent on your specific growing conditions and on the vigor of the particular cultivar. It may be the next spring; it may be 5 yrs from now. When a rhizome blooms but fails to produce increases, that is a condition known as "bloom out" and will result in loss of the plant.

Bloom is never guaranteed in any iris under any circumstances, but with proper care and selection of cultivars suited to your climate, you should be able to create an enviable iris garden that will grace your home with beauty every year.

Laurie

Thank you Laurie.

Wow these are complicated iris.
You mean I plant a rhizome of a bearded iris and it booms it doesn't bloom again it grows more rhizome and blooms off of that?
Totally confused.Maybe I don't want iris then.lol.Jody

Ha.. sure you do.
So if one mama rhizome blooms this season-she will not bloom again, she may make 4 babies and those 4 babies "may" bloom next year depending on cultivar and conditions.

But...wouldnt you have to wait until Fall for these new babies to grow before you could transplant them?

Charlotteda, your right I bought two tiny batik at wally world today.They are so tiny.I think the directions are wrong too.Directions say bury it 3" under the soil and cover.It will die won't it?I thought they shouldn't be covered.
Sorry to interupt,just want someone who knows something to tell me the facts.lol.Thanks,Jody

Bearded irises should be planted no more than 1/2" deep. Most gardeners leave the tops of the rhizomes exposed to the sun, but I typically put a light soil cover over them. Irises have a tendency to adjust their own planting depth over time. Some will bury themselves an inch or so deep. Others will just about push themselves completely out of the ground. I figure they know better than I, so I don't try to adjust them if they reposition themselves like that. If it's clear that an animal has caused the planting depth to change or that the plant has frost-heaved out of the ground, I will correct those.

Because I live in such a short-season climate, I dig and divide immediately after bloom so my irises have as much time as possible to root in before winter. Of course, I don't disturb irises until clumps get overcrowded or bloom diminishes. If you have a single rhizome that blooms and then increases, there's no sense in removing and transplanting the increases unless you're trying to maximize numbers for sale. Most gardeners want their irises to grow into large clumps that put on abundant shows of color during bloom. If you remove and transplant all the increases, you'll never have more than a single stalk here and a single stalk there during bloom season.

Best bloom in iris clumps typically occurs during the second and third years after planting. For that reason, I like to have at least two separate clumps of each cultivar. That way, I can stagger the years the clumps are divided so I always have a nice sized, blooming clump and another older clump I can divide.

Laurie

A great idea to have 2 clumps Laurie.

Jody, I've had a few bearded for several years. I do plant mine leaving the top barely exposed. Forget the Wally World directions, and dont be upset if your Batik turns out to be something else. They are notorious for have plants misnamed but maybe yours will be correct- sometimes they are. I bought some Pink Lily of the Valley, I'll let you know if a few months if they bloom pink or white :)

LOL. Jody

Thank you for the information. I am relatively new to Dave's Garden and am very new to Iris. I am picking up all the information I can. Don't have many right now - just 4 - bought from a local store store. Figured I'd better make my mistakes on inexpensive plants rather than quality pedigreed plants. Dotti

Jodie - what a great idea to do stagger digging like that.

Dottik

You have a great climate for growing Iris - but because you have a lot of rain, you should be really careful to not plant them too deep. The first year you might want to mulch them in the winter - but take it off in the spring. I actually don't do that but we have very mild winters. Don't be discouraged if your local store plants don't perform for you. If they do it's great, if they don't do so well - try again with a mail order nursery. Many of them are very reasonable and the plants come dug right out of the field. You can get rhizomes of some very nice cultivars for $4.00 or even less. And they increase so fast. You'll be digging and dividing before you know it. If your tulips are up, it's time to feed them with a 5-10-10 plant food or bulb food but keep it at least 2" away from the rhizomes. Some people are successful with bone meal but I find that it encourages critters.

And Margiempv has told me that seeds can live in the ground and stay viable for up to 12 years. These are hardy plants. I can't really imagine a better and easier thing to grow than an Iris, unless it's a reblooming Iris. :-)

This link is to the page on Schreiner's Iris Garden's website where they discuss Iris culture. If you look at the Iris, divide the prices of the plants by half - which is probably what you'll pay there- but even then they are pricey. Folks here can direct you to good more reasonably priced vendors, but I find that this page is great. I still do order from Schreiner's at times.

http://www.schreinersgardens.com/iris_culture.shtml

Hope that this helps.

Thank you very much, Doss. At this point the ground up here on my hill is quite poor and slopes quite steeply. I have a very poor sense of balance so I don't even try to plant in the ground and have my Iris planted in a large pot. After checking them this afternoon, I am very pleased to say that all four are beginning to show some green coming up. Quite a thrill. I used a good potting soil and added some vermiculite and perlite to it to fluff it up. I hope I did the correct thing. I didn't add any fertilizer when I planted. Should I go ahead and do so when the tulips show up? At this point, the daffodils are coming up but aren't blooming yet. I'll have my DH help me get to the back of our property and see if our few tulips are showing any signs of coming up yet.
Dotti

That green's coming up fast. Congratulations!

I fed mine last week. I had the manpower here to do it, so I had it done. The problem with the tulip rule (which I now realize is silly) is that I have early and late tulips. I'd feed them half strength now with a soluble fertilizer and do it again in a month since they are in a pot. In addition to feeding them a month after bloom - sometimes hard to figure out with the lovely long blooming seasons we get now. If you've got a rebloomer, you'll want to feed it half strength again after another month. I have one that blooms all fall and I feed that one late summer too. I am a big one on fertilizing. I do most things in my garden with a water soluble fertilizer once a month in the summer - and it makes a huge difference. I do the Camellias, bulbs, trees, other ways although the iris and bulbs can get oversprayed in the beds, I use a low nitrogen fertilizer and it hasn't hurt them yet. I'm using tree food stakes now. I had an entire bed that I rarely watered in the summer and they were fine. Iris are INCREDIBLY hardy if you don't bury them too deep, don't keep them wet, limit their nitrogen, and - the biggest job - divide them when they stop producing. But you get all of those new plants so it's fun too. Oh, and the squirrels that think they belong on the top of the soil. I had a few arguments with the squirrels when I found my rhizomes a couple feet from their places. They are fine and growing though. I won!

What Iris cultivars are you growing?

At the time I planted them, I wasn't really paying much attention to the cultivars. (The interest in cultivars has come since I joined Dave's Garden) I remember that one is pink, one is white and one is gold. Can't remember the color even of the 4th one. I think you can say that I am completely raw. I'll get them fertilized within the next couple of days; I'll pick up some liquid fertilizer when I get paid on Tuesday. I Know that I will buy more this year for next year's bloom. Should I put a time release fertilizer in the soil at planting time? They will be going in pots again. Thanks for all the tips. They are appreciated highly. Dotti

You know, I forgot that you have two other kinds of Iris. I have a couple bulbous types. I put bulb food in with my Iris when I plant them. No one recommends it. If you have a dog - just don't put bone meal in the bottom of the hole. They love the stuff. You're smart to grow these in different containers - then you can treat them all differently. It's going to be a great experiment for you. Key is to remember that this is nature and sometimes, things just don't work out. Whether or not these work out, you can try again. I can't tell you how many times I have started over. Just this year I got a rhizome that was in bad shape - and it rotted out. I got a refund for it -so it was worth a try. Five others in the same shape made it. You never do know.

What inspired you to grow Iris?

Someone is supposed to send me a japanese iris for a trade.How do I plant it and where?Should I plant it in a pot,I think I like them even more an the regular iris.I've never seen one bloom.But from what I've read they have a very big bloom.Can you tell me how deep,ect. to plant it and can they take full sun too?Thanks,Jody

JIs need rich, acidic soil and will do best if the soil is kept consistently moist (and mulched). They are heavy feeders and perform best in full sun. They should be planted with the rhizomes 1-3" deep.

I have read about JIs excreting some sort of substance that eventually poisons their surrounding soil, though not everyone agrees with that theory. There does seem to be agreement, however, that JIs need to be moved to a new location with fresh soil every few yrs to perform their best. For that reason, I choose to grow my few JIs in large pots. It just seems a lot easier to replace the pot soil every few years than to dig and relocate JIs in the garden.

Laurie

okay thanks for the information.Jody

I fell in love with all the color combinations available and with the stately appearance of the Tall Bearded Iris. Then I noticed some of the other species available; you know, Japanese Iris, Louisiana Iris, and Siberian Iris. Wonderful looking plants and flowers. Dotti

You can't eat just one. :-)

Giant LOL. Jody

I'm beginning to suspect I have acquired an addiction! Dotti

At least it's not fattening. It'll make your pocketbook thinner too. : )
I've been looking at some of the open iris websites. Eye Candy! Now, you know I'm having a case of the munchies.

What good is May if not for Iris?

Wanda - that is certainly what May is for. I just love this grouping.

I had a real difficulty properly phtographing that "Traitor" iris. It's such an incredible color & I can't quite get it.

I'm looking forward to some of the iris clump arrangements in my beds this year. Due to a new addiction (Lilliums!), I had to widen my beds & move many of my TBs & Intermediates into front rows to make room for the new lilies. All of my beds are mixed perennials, with a goal of all season color. Or at least April to October color.

Another beautiful bed. I don't think that I've seen this one before. It's a good thing that I'm allergic to Lilliums - another plant I wouldn't be able to be without, if it didn't make me sneeze.