What do your Siberian Iris look like now? Any green growth?

Hi everybody--

I'm a relative newbie to Siberians -- saw everyone's wonderful pics from last year, and just had to have a nice collection (so I could join in on the fun this year).

But, huh, oh, I planted about 20 different divisions from Ensata last fall...

and I just went out to look for new growth in the garden, and my new Siberians look dead or dormant. I wonder which it is?

My 3 year old old stand-bys, "Butter and Sugar", "Caesar's Brother", "Snow Queen", and "Coronation Anthem", have the old brown leaves still attached, but under them are green shoots.

My new plants just have the cut off brown leaves (winter foliage) and I can't find any shoots.

I tried to follow the planting instructions fairly carefully-- they are basically in the same beds as the thriving older sibs.

We are in Zone 6a.

Am I being nervous for nothing?!

Thanks. t.

Mine are still all under snow...soggy, melting snow....but still snow.

I do find that my newer Sib's are not as quick in the spring as my established ones--and even at that they sprout and their own pace....example--King of Kings--a late blooming white--is slower w/ its foliage than others.

So for me in zone 4a---I have a similar experience--although later in the spring.

Maybe you'll get some additional feedback closer to your zone.

All of my older Sibs are showing new growth, but the new ones, not yet, they take time.

I am in zone 7 and it is wet, suppose to get snow on Thur and Fri and then sun next week....very windy and very cold.

Hope this helps Tazzy. I would not worry until about April in your zone.

D

OK. I think I can relax for a month or so! Thanks for your reassurances!

Can't wait for spring and to see all the pretty pics of everyone's Sibiricas? Is anyone as antsy as I am?

I am ansy. Everyday when I get home from work I perform an inspection. I too planted new siberians last year. My established plants have a few inches of growth on them but the new babies have nothin! except for one that had a teeny tiny bit of growth I found today. WhooHoo!

Mine are just now starting new growth, and i've been having 70 degree days, their up about l/2 to 1 in. It might be still early for yours tobasco, don't give up on them though.


Their so worth the wait, I love mine.


kathy

Mine won't be up for at least another month, maybe more. I can't even kill them, don't worry. Newer planted ones are later to emerge the first spring, plus you may have planted them deeper, or your older ones have worked there way up to the top of the ground. Wow, 20 new varieties! Be sure to show pictures. I've never had one from Ensata not do well. Polly

I'm zone 8 and my sibs and japanese irises are only showing a few inches of green.

P

Here in sunny (not today) Southern California, mine are just barely peeking out with some green, still lots of brown on mine.

Well, I don't feel so bad at all now, if Zone 10's are still brown!

Thanks for posting!

Can't wait to see all the pics in a few weeks/months! t.

I have some large clumps of Lavender Bounty that needs dividing, how do you divide? This is a favorite of mine. I won a blue ribbon at my local Iris show with it.
They have one of the closest knit root systems! I have a little green showing, not to much yet. I have been out removing the brown leaves today.
Teresa

Well, let's see a picture of that blue ribbon winner!?

Then we'll discuss how to divide it! (-:

My Sibs are still sleeping too. I'm not even looking for them to show new growth for a good month or 6 weeks.

The first time I divided my Siberian Iris I also wondered how? I found this information and have kept it ever since.

Before dividing Siberian irises, remove any dead foliage and standing flower stalks. Because these irises form dense clumps, you'll need to dig the entire clump out of the ground before dividing it.

* Use your spade to dig all the way around the outside of the clump.
* Slide your spade under the clump. You may have to sever some of the roots.
* Lift the clump in one section.
I then throw it out on the lawn and wash all the dirt off.
* Divide it into smaller sections.

You'll want to replant some irises in the same spot; plant the others anywhere else you'd like a vertical element.

* Replant sections at the same depth they were originally growing.
* Pack the soil tightly around each plant.
* Water well so that they get settled into the soil again.

Can someone tell me how to hyberlink to Plant Files? t. there is two pics of it in PFs. Mine looks more like poppysues' pic. I think one reason it won was because it is good about having multiblooms per stem. The winner had four that day the bottom was just budding out!

Basically copy the URL of your Plant file page and paste it into your message.

Be sure there is a empty 'space' before and after your Link or it won't work right.

(Long Version: find my page, highlight the URL, right click the mouse and put the cursor on 'copy' and click. Then go back to my message and click where I want the URL and then right click the mouse and click on 'paste'. Voila!)

Then I 'preview' my message and click on the Link to make sure it works. Sometimes I have to put the extra space in before and after to get it to work.

Like this:

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/95256/

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/5005/





This message was edited Mar 11, 2006 11:25 AM

Joan, great advice!

If your iris is really dense, and large when you dig it up divide it by slicing it with a spade or shovel into 4-8 parts. If it is younger and looser you maybe can pull apart sections. You can divide it up into many pieces if you wish, but you will get better blooms the larger sections you have.

I also soak mine in a very light miraclegrow/ water solution for a few hours to overnight before replanting.

My daughter is a Dentist, and has very strong fingers. She does our dividing. Last year I dug up a clump of Coronation Anthem (and being tetraploid they are denser, and harder to divide). Well, she can't stand to divide by shovel when you can get more by hand. Unfortunately I left for awhile and came back and she had over 90 divisions.

She left them for me to replant.

Sibs are easy to divide and forgiving of any errors.

Polly

Hmm. My experience with dividing Sibs is different than Joan's and Polly's. I have found that Sibs in my garden can be pretty fussy about being dug, divided, and replanted. If I replant the wrong size divisions and/or at the wrong time of year and/or into the wrong kind of soil and/or provide improper post-transplant watering, I can lose the transplants.

For that reason, I rarely dig an entire clump when I divide. Instead, I cut a slice or slices of the original clump (like cutting slices from a pie) with a sharp shovel. That way I can keep the rest of the clump in the ground with minimal root disturbance so as not to disturb its bloom cycle, and I can fill the empty "pie wedge" with fresh, amended soil to feed the original clump. I can then further divide the removed wedge(s) into divisions of 10-12 fans each for transplantation. I agree with Polly that larger divisions tend to do better than smaller ones.

I also agree with Polly about soaking the transplants for a few hours or overnight before replanting. In fact, care should be taken NOT to allow Sib roots to dry out once you have them out of the ground. Put the wedges immediately into large buckets of water for an hour to allow the soil to soften and fall off the roots. That'll make it much easier to divide the wedges. After you've divided them, put them back into the buckets with fresh, clean water until you're ready to replant.

Water deeply immediately after replanting, mulch heavily, and water daily until new growth occurs. Do not allow their soil to dry out for the rest of the season after replanting. Do not fertilize until the spring after transplanting.

Laurie

Laurie,

I read in (I think) Clair Austins new Iris book that siberians are harder to divide. I have never found that to be the case, and wondered what she was speaking of. So, obviously it is true.

You mentioned putting them into the right kind of soil. We have extremely sandy soil, and I do not amend it at all. It is slightly acidic. I do soak the iris, and keep them well watered. I can't say I have ever lost a transplant, even though some were extremely small.

I wonder why this is, very interesting.

I have more trouble establishing bearded than siberian. Japanese also do very well here, even though it doesn't make sense, due to our sandy soil.

You are very knowledgeable, and I wonder if you might have any more insight on this. To me siberians are as easy to grow and divide as weeds.

Love to hear what you might have further to say on the subject.

Polly

Polly,

If you are successfully growing and transplanting Sibs, you're waaaay ahead of me on the learning curve. I'm still trying to figure out how to grow the doggone things. I know they can handle my climate, but I lose them frequently for reasons I have not yet managed to clearly define. Your post may hold some important clues for me, though.

My soil is also slightly acidic, but unlike yours, mine is almost solid clay. For that reason, I amend my soil heavily with pretty much anything I can find, adding LOTS of organics to try to lighten it up. As a result, my soil is very fertile - probably moreso than new Sib transplants can handle. I find it interesting that you never lose transplants in what I assume is extremely lean sand, and I lose them frequently in fertile amended clay.

When I first started growing Sibs a few years ago, I chose a site that I thought would be ideal. It was at the bottom of a grade in my yard that floods every time it rains but drains off within a day or two. Knowing that Sibs like consistently moist soil, I figured they'd appreciate the extra water. I was wrong. Most of them rotted away. I don't, however, know if they rotted because of the intermittent flooding, the heavy fertile soil, poor transplant timing (planting just before temps got hot), or any combination of these or other unidentified factors.

Last summer I dug out the survivors and moved them into a new bed. The bed is built on slightly sloped ground to aid drainage, and within the bed the irises are planted on raised windrows to further facilitate drainage. The soil is still heavily amended to help lighten it up, but the primary amendment is sphagnum peat which wouldn't have added any nutritional value (though some of the other amendments did). I mulched the Sibs with pine needles and kept them well watered.

I'll know in another month or two how many of the Sibs survived the transplantation into the new bed and whether or not they seem happy there. I'm determined to find the cultural combination to success with Sibs in my garden. If the new bed continues to lose Sibs, I may try another bed with no amendments other than sand and sphagnum peat. Perhaps lean soil is the key for new tranplants.

BTW, Polly, I'd love to see the list of Sibs you grow. Always on the lookout for future trade partners, you know. ;-)

Laurie

Interesting run-down on the various transplant experiences and note the contrast to Polly's and JoanJ's and laurie's.

It seems like laurie did everything according to the letter from reading the culture instructions from the various Siberian Iris societies/suppliers, so I wonder if there is some omission in their instructions...? No websites say anything about sandy soil but after reading some posts in the Soils forum about soil biology/chemistry there may be an interesting new approach with sandy soil and siberians. Interesting.

Does anyone know if anybody is doing university level research on Siberians? It would be interesting to access that information to see if there is a difference of opinion/experience with culture in their research. Although I suspect that interest in Siberians is too recent or small to warrant that investigation...

I do see a few little green shoots coming from a couple of my new ones, so I am becoming hopeful.

I am learning a lot from all of the discussion here, so thank you very much for taking the time to write. t.

My Siberians are still brown & dead looking here in Iowa. I have them growing in dry parts of the garden and soggy places. When I want some to trade, I do like laurie & just shove my shovel in the center to chop off a hunk. I leave most of the clump intact.

Siberians grow easily here. I have several colors. My ground was an old clay cornfield 15 years ago. I have added grass, leaves & wood mulches over the years, but most of the soil is still pretty tough to work.

Here is what one of the untrimmed clumps looked like this morning. (To be trimmed this afternoon when it warms a bit...)

I don't know if this will help you figure out why you are losing transplants laurie, but my soil is very sandy, and we get very little rain in the summer. I also have them planted where they don't get watered as much as the rest of the gardens. In my yard, they have proven to be pretty drought tolerant. When I transplant them, I water them in good, and make sure they get watered regularly for a couple weeks and then forget about them. I don't think I have ever fertilized them either. Too much fertilizer or rich soil may promote top growth when they should be putting down roots instead. If your soil is rich, could this be happening, and then when winter comes they don't have enough root system to hold them through the winter?

Our climates are pretty close, but the soils may be way different. I'm not sure where Deer River is. Is it in the Red River Valley by any chance?

Deer River is between Bemidji and Grand Rapids (MN), about midway E-W in northern MN. In addition to being extremely heavy clay and slightly acidic, my native soil is also very potassium deficient. I always add potash when reworking a bed or creating a new one. It's funny up here because there are veins of clay and veins of sugar sand running between all the swampy areas. I have a friend a few miles down the road who gardens on beautiful loam at the edge of a swamp, and another friend a few miles further who gardens on sugar sand. Most folks, though, are stuck with all the clay dumped by glaciers. I think I've got all of about 2" of topsoil before I hit solid clay.

My problem with Sibs isn't loss over the first winter; it's loss almost immediately after transplanting. All of the top growth dies off of the transplants within a couple of weeks post-transplant, and the rhizomes rot away. Again, I don't know exactly why this has happened as frequently as it has in my garden, though lack of adequate drainage and overly fertile soil are looking more and more likely as culprits.

I'm REALLY hoping this new bed will turn things around for my Sibs. At least I know I've taken care of the drainage problem (assuming I didn't overwater them in spite of the good drainage), though I may still have created too fertile a soil for them. The new bed does provide more sunlight than the old bed, and the soil is definitely lighter and more acid, so those aspects have improved along with the drainage. Unfortunately, a few of the Sibs I transplanted into the new bed last year lost their top growth, so they may be goners. Most of them, however, ended the season with green showing, so they should be fine.

I'm going to have a hard time waiting these next couple of months until the Sibs awaken. I REALLY want to know who's going to make an appearance this year. I don't even need bloom. I 'll be happy with GREEN!

Laurie

This message was edited Mar 12, 2006 1:56 PM

laurie,
A couple years ago I was losing Sibs that came dry rooted, soaked in water 24 hours & planted directly into my soil. I found that the potted SIbs I bought & transplanted roots , dirt & all had no problems. I suspected my compacted clay soil & tried digging the hole deeper plus enriching it with top soil as I transplanted. I watered them well , then mulched heavily. The SIberians seemed to like the looser, lighter soil & rooted well. Once they grew to encounter my clay soil, they were strong enough to fight thru it.

I've had similar success with potted Sibs, Wanda. The bareroot babies are the problematic ones here. Replacing clay with topsoil is a very good idea and one I'll keep in mind for the future. Topsoil is probably a better choice than all the organic amendments I've been adding.

Laurie

Laurie,

I've been growing siberians for about 14 years, mostly for sale. I have transplanted thousands, and hardly ever lost one. All the ones I have, I received bareroot, mostly from Walters Gardens (20 of each) and Ensata, planted them in a garden bed, or border, and then divided, divided. I divide for a few years, then pot them up for sale, as they get bigger.

I am saying this seriously when I tell you how we divide them. My hubby digs up the whole clump and throws it on the ground in front of my daughters chair, she then divides the clump by pulling it apart, as many as she can, and throws them on the ground in front of her. I then pick them up, when I get ready, and put them in water, with a little bit of Miracle Grow, soak, and plant out in rows, not elevated. I don't mulch, nor fertilize. I water them heavy for a few weeks. We divide most of the spring, and fall, whenever we get around to it. In the fall I cut back the leaves to about 4 in. The rest of the year I ignore them (other than to admire them).

The cultivars I have are Caesar's Brother, Silver Edge, Ruffled Velvet, Baby Sister,Coronation Anthem, and White Swirl. These are the ones I propagate for sales. You probaly have all these as they are so common, but would love to send you some, if any you don't have.

I have ordered some new ones for this spring, so hopefully will have some different ones to trade in a couple of years. (I ordered So Van Gogh, amongst others), and would love to trade.

It might be that sandy soil. Although as far as rotting out, I must confess I've left them in the water bucket for a few days with no problem.

I bet we will figure this out, though!

Polly

Laurie, I was just re-reading this, and you said you lost the top growth within a few weeks on some. Boy, that really sounds like crown rot from too much water to me. This would be a pain, but maybe you will have to pot them up, and grow them on in spring, and plant in early fall in the garden. I use Metro Mix 510 for my sib iris pots, and it works well. Polly

Thanks, Polly, for the additional information. When I first started growing a large number of Sibs (in the bed that floods when it rains), and I started seeing all the top growth die off shortly after planting, I was so unfamiliar with Sibs that I hoped it was just a result of transplant shock and that the foliage would regrow once the Sibs settled in. Of course that was just wishful thinking, and the Sibs never recovered. When I dug around in the soil months later, all I found were rotted rzs and roots. Ugh.

I've tried both spring planting and late summer planting, but neither option is ideal here. I've read that Sibs won't grow new roots when air temps exceed 90 degrees, and those temps can be reached here in June. Late April or early May planting is possible, though we can get freezes that late here. Planting in fall is a tricky proposition, too, since we can go from 90 to below freezing in a matter of a week at that time of year. Soil temps can cool so quickly in fall that late planted Sibs wouldn't have time to root in at all before winter.

When I moved all the Sibs into the new bed late last summer, I pretty much lucked out in terms of temps. It remained warm for a good month after planting, then rose into the 90s for a little while before dropping below freezing. The Sibs should have had adequate time to root in before being stressed by the wild temp swings.

I have potted Sibs that arrived at bad times of year for direct planting into the garden. Sometimes the potting works, sometimes not. I do believe, though, that I learn from every success and every failure, and that sooner or later I'll find the techniques that tip the scale decidedly to the side of success. This thread has been very helpful in that regard.

I think you're right about crown rot and overwatering, and my tendency to overfeed my beds with amendments probably just feeds the rot organisms. I'm going to be a lot less abundant with water for new Sib transplants in the future, and I'm going to choose less nutritious soil amendments like sphagnum peat, perlite, and sand.

You're right. We can figure this out ... eventually.

Laurie

P.S. I''ll talk to you about a trade when spring hits the Northland. I don't have all of those oldies, but I'd like to!

This message was edited Mar 12, 2006 5:08 PM