Help - iris rot and moving plants

Hi! Three of the bearded irises I planted last fall have rotted (yes the tuber was partially exposed, etc. - but the wicked weather this spring led to large puddles of water (though they always drained by the end of the day)

So - can I move two irises from one bed to fill the gap left by two that rotted in the larger bed? Or do I have to wait until the fall. The plants are just putting out their new shoots.

I'd recommend waiting until after bloom so that you don't risk aborting this year's bloom by disturbing the ones you want to move.

Okay - so move them in June or July, right?

You can move them pretty much anytime after bloom as long as you give them at least 6 weeks in the ground before your first frost to give them time to root in before winter.

If you haven't yet removed the rotted irises, they might surprise you by resurrecting later in the season. Sometimes even when the mature rhizome rots, tiny little increases will survive and grow later. Not always, of course, but sometimes.

Laurie

Yeah , but these were new last fall, so I doubt any little rhizomes developed. I am really disappointed, one was Beverly Sills. sigh.

I'm sorry about your Iris. Beverly Sills is such a pretty one, too.

Bev can be difficult. She rotted and died for me twice before I got a rhizome that finally managed to hang on and acclimate to my climate. Even then, she sat her for FIVE YEARS before she decided to bloom for the first time. Once she bloomed, though, she hasn't quit. She is now one of my most reliable bloomers and the healthiest pink TB in my garden.

She's a stubborn old gal, but she's worth the effort if you have the patience to wait her out.

Laurie

Hummmm . . . do I sit out 5 - 6 years or do I cut my losses and move to some other more reliable iris . . . .

If I had known it would take 8 yrs to get a decent bloom out of her (2 years of rotting, 5 yrs of waiting for a surviving rz to bloom (a single, deformed flower), another year waiting for the survivor to bloom a normal flower), I would have planted different pink TBs. Of course your experience with her in zone 6a is likely to be quite different than my experience here in 3b. Maybe the second time will be the charm for you. You never know.

A couple of back yard cures for rot is scoop out the rot and sprinkle COMET on it...the other is scoop out the rot and mix 50-50 water to LISTRINE

I used to save 90% of the ones with rot this way...too many now to do it that way...rain does create alot more rot than we like.

D

Great ideas! I think these guys are really beyond redemption. But I will definitely keep both of those ideas recorded for future use. Thank-you so very much

Clean out the rot till the rhz. looks like a raw potato. then rub RUB in the comet. Not just sprinkle it on. It does work. Even if there is only a tiny bit of rhz. left. Listrine Really. You learn something new here every day Dee.
inanda

But there doesn't seem to be anything in the rhz. They're just soft and spongy and sort of hollow.

Oh well, in that case, start again I think, with new rhizomes. Do they smell badly, awful? Maybe don't plant iris right in the same place for a year or two, just in case. I just HATE to lose an iris.

inanda

I've got exactly the same thing happening in my beds right now, Seandor— rotted shells where rhizomes used to be. I was expecting it. We had frigid temps with virtually no protective snow cover in early Feb., and that sort of weather has caused devastating losses in my iris beds in the past. I knew I'd have losses this spring, and I wasn't wrong. It's still too early to tell just how many are gone, though. Generally the most recently planted irises are the ones most vulnerable to loss because they have the least well developed root systems and little or no secondary growth to sustain the clump if the primary rhizome rots. As I was cleaning one of my beds today, the rotted rzs were all planted just last summer. The established clumps seem to have survived this year's otherwise deadly winter conditions.

I really don't think it's necessary to avoid planting in the same spots. The erwinia bacteria that causes bacterial soft rot is, I believe, endemic to most soils, anyway. If climatic or growing conditions weaken your irises and leave them vulnerable to erwinia infection, I doubt if it matters where in your garden you have your irises planted. The trick is to do everything you can to keep your irises healthy and strong so that erwinia can't successfully attack them.

Laurie

Right - same thing happened here. Freezing temperatures - no snow after a strangely mild first half of the winter. I consider myself lucky to have lost only 3 irises. The others are sending out new shoots, so that seems like a good sign (I am a newbie - so I hoe it's a good sign).

New growth is a great sign, but I think I should warn you that sometimes after a winter like this, an iris will show new growth in the spring just to die later in the season. I consider this winter loss because the overall weakening of the plant occurred as a result of winter stress.

Hopefully you won't see any of that delayed winter kill in your garden.

Laurie

I learned something really interesting at my last iris meeting. Using neosporin helps with iris rot! Tntigger shared that with me and I can't wait to try it. I bought some large tubes of store brand and I'm going to try it when this rainy weather clears up. I'm thinking that the gel base will help keep water from getting back into the wound.

And I'm wondering if watering with the Listerine solution now and then would help to prevent rot from starting.

No luck with stopping the rot before starting except in Fall with clearys

D

Hi Dee! What exactly is Clearys? I have heard about this stuff but never seen it for sale anywhere. I keep meaning to ask about it at our club meeting but I keep forgetting. Is this a fungicide spray or something? Do you buy it locally? I have heard it does wonders too.

I get mine at the farm store...where they sell chemicals for the ag fields.
It is a fungicade (sp) that is super in helping to cut down the rot. You treat when you are replanting the field.

Denise

Denise, I don't understand how or why a fungicide would have any action against bacterial soft rot. Does Cleary's contain an antibacterial as well as a fungicide?

Yes it does and this is something many of the growers use here...
Denise