Best Bet Iris

I just bought 8 rhizomes of Best Bet Iris from Home Depot. I have never used Best Bet before. Do you have any comment or advice for this type of Iris?

Thank you.

'Best Bet' is a multiple award winning tall bearded iris that should make a beautiful display in your garden IF that's what you really purchased. Be warned, however, that irises sold through large retail outlets like Home Depot, Lowes, and the "marts" are notoriously misidentified. They may or may not end up looking anything like the name and photo on the package. It's best not to count on buying accurately named irises from such stores.

Laurie

Isn' that a shame, why is it that there is no accountability there? I guess no one complains to HD or those guys when they don't get what they paid for...or there would have to be so many complants beofre they do something....go back to their supplier, who goes back to his supplier....jeez!

Oh well, I bought a few at my local nursery this week, planted them with their pictures - maybe that will inspire them to bloom true!

I bought the same ones. I really hope they're Best Bet. I plan on labeling everything, so I'll know what's mislabeled or not.

I've found the same tags and varities on iris bought at local nurserys & Earl May. They seem to bloom right about 1/2 the time. Obviously all from the same growers. Come to think of it, only 1/2 the iris I bought on ebay bloomed correct. Makes for some surprises in the garden.

Very troublesome, though, when you're planning black and white beds, and pink beds, and red/white/blue beds. A red, pink, and orange bed will just plain clash.

I've bought daylilies, iris & lilies from many different sources over the years. Many top nurseries as well as private people have given me the wrong varities. I saw alot of surprises in my beds this spring....

Thank you for the warning. I'll monitor that closely. I often have similar problems with Daffidils. I frequently got flowers that are not as fancy as the advertising pics.

Wandasflowers, you have one of the BEST iris garden, very impressive!!

It was a good year for iris --I was lucky. I grow 227 Tall beardeds and another 50-60 dwarfs and Intermediates in multiple beds squeezed in between my daylilies & lilies. Makes life interesting.

I also purchased "Best Bet" at a chain store...I think it was Bi-Mart. I had great luck with that one bulb and got lots of blooms! I need to find more of these!

I now only will buy from sellers who backup their plants with a money back guarantee that they will be true to name.

Baolvera, Those are ABSOLUTE gorgeous Best BET I have seen so far. Later next month I'll be putting 6 rhisomes in the ground. Hopefully they come up as nice as yours next year.

Asunee,

You should not wait to plant your bearded irises. They are not bulbs (they are rhizomes) and should not be planted in the fall in a cold winter zone. In fact, they should be in the ground AT LEAST 6 weeks before your first hard frost to give them time to root in before winter. Plant them NOW.

Laurie

I have irises on order that still haven't gotten here. I ordered them a month ago. I don't know what they're waiting on.

Laurief, Thank you for your adbvice. Apparently I know nuttin about Irises...LOL I'll put them in the ground tomorrow.

Question: Do I need to put some munch over them in winter? Also blood meal or bone meal for Irises?

Thanks again!

You can put a light application of straw around them for winter protection. Pull it away from the rhizomes in the Spring.

Add some bone meal in the Spring before they bud out.

This message was edited Oct 6, 2006 8:48 AM

Since you're planting so late, it wouldn't be a bad idea to mulch them lightly with evergreen boughs after the ground freezes. DO NOT use any mulch material that is likely to compress around the rhizomes (like chopped leaves, grass, etc.) or you will likely rot them.

Bone meal is a good source of phosphate for irises, but it may promote digging by carniverous animals (dogs or wildlife) in search of the bone scent. You can avoid that problem by using superphosphate instead.

Laurie

Found out what happened to my irises. Nothing! They never sent them. They said they sent me an e-mail canceling the order, but I don't have a problem getting messages on my hotmail account, and I never got it.

Now there are going to be holes in my irises beds for the irises that I never got. And that was my third attempt and third company!

Schreiners is going to get about 95% of my business next year.

I got my 2 bags of 4 BEST BET Iris from Home Depot. Hopefully they are really BEST BET...LOL

I put them in the ground yesterday with a touch of Bone meal. I checked on them this morning and no sign of digging yet. I'll put a couple moth balls on the top, just to be safe.

Thank you for your advice everyone.

I ordered more Best Bet from Schreiner's. I hope to get a package in the mail soon!

I didn't know Schreiners was still taking orders. If I'd known that, I would have ordered another Pledge Allegiance from them, to replace the one the tree rat chewed up.

Just got my package yeasterday from Schreiner's in the mail and got the Best Bet in the ground. I do think it is nearing the end of the shipping season for them. We are only about 20 miles away from their business, so maybe they are still shipping locally?

I am surprised they are shipping this late, even locally. Of couse, it is getting frosty in Iowa. If all goes well, I will be helping Moby move some iris, daylilies & lilies this weekend in Nebraska. No choice--she bought a house & is moving.

What a gorgeous bloom!

You know, both Home Depot & Lowe's have 1 year guarantees on their perennials... you must bring back the dead plant with a receipt... I bet they'd also take back a live plant that didn't bloom true, so that's something you might ask about. If they say no and you really want your $ back I guess you could "accidently".... oh, no, I'm not going to suggest that, LOL!

Wanda, Are these pictures from you yard? Amazingly beautiful! Please come to my house and plant flowers. lol :-)
I wish you were at least near me. I have a hard time locating dwarfs and intemediates.

You had a good year for iris blooms? I purchase at least 30 plus named varieties last fall and got 3 blooms. It was a bummer. I have about 40 or so no names and got about 4 blooms. In fact the lady I buy my iris from said she had a down year too. So did my mom (who usually has quite a few blooms). ~~~ Carol

I bought Best Bet along with 3 other rebloomers from a supposedly reputable catalogue here, none of them were even close to the correct colours let alone the correct names.

I also bought some from a supermarket, one was even supposed to be exclusive to them, 3 out of 4 flowered and none were correct. One to go, Edith Wolford, it has purplish tinged stems so it may be interesting if not correct.

I also got some from T&M a couple of years ago, Black Taffeta, a couple flowered and they were a mid blue. I complained, they sent me more the following spring which were small, some flowered this year and I don't think I saw anything that looked at all black. Blue, yes.

No luck for me, a lack of varieties, and when you think you have a chance to get some interesting ones you don't. There was a specialist nursery I found once that had some expensive reasonably good ones, I wish I could just go back and spend more and get the proper ones. I now have quite a few 'interesting' irises, none that I chose except for two I bought on ebay, Kinkajou Shrew and Dark Vader. Which goes to show that a reputable ebay seller is much better than a reputable catalogue company.

Spring 2006 brought INCREDIBLE blooms to my yard! Just the right combo of cool weather & iris bloom cycles, I guess. I opened it to the public.

Can you grow dwarfs or Intermediates in Texas? I thought they needed a hard freeze to develop blooms properly.

These same gardens are full of daylilies and lilies and other perennials when the iris fade. it's a challenge, but fun.

From what I understand, iris don't always bloom the first year after you plant them. I expect that my Schreiners will. They were fat, healthy rhizomes. But some of the others were kind of dry and puny. I'll wish for the best, of course, but it may take a couple of years for them to get their mojo working.

WH: How are things going for you tonight..hopefully better! Are your bulbs growing any..I think we both ordered ours from Schreiners around the same time. My are showing quite a bit of growth but it is still warm here, around 80 today. I keep thinking it can't be but one of mine looks like it has a stem coming up on it...will see in a couple of days. I have some that are about a foot tall already so hopefully I get some blooms in spring. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Before the cold hit, a lot of the irises I planted a couple months ago were sprouting new growth. So they put down roots and were settling in. Those ones I've got a lot of hopes for, but of course it'll be several months before I know.

Spring is going to be so exciting. I'll probably be in my garden every day, staring at the ground waiting for something to pop up above the surface.

Oh I walk up and down my garden about 10 times a day making sure a bug hasn't touched one of my bulbs. I'm putting in an order for calla lillies tomorrow..I'd be happy to just have irises and callas in my yard, those are my two fav flowers. Not sure how I'll do on my callas, I think they'll be kinda hard for me. I order alot and hopefully some will survive.