BLUE J IRIS

I just got my order of iris from Blue J Iris. The rhizome are heavy and healthy and the roots are thick and fleshy. I ordered 30 and got 33 with the bonus. I am very pleased.

If you post your comments on the Watchdog, many others will benefit from your experience.

Thanks for your imput. Actually I posted to the watchdog at the same time I posted here.

My order also arrived and I'll be posting there this evening, I rely on the Watchdog. I am very pleased with my order.

can anyone help me out? i have about 600 irise's and they are getting the white grube in the roots what can i do >

cooksterann, are they in the root? or the rhizome? If it's the rhizome, look up Iris Borer..

By the time a borer reaches the rhizome, it will be fairly pink-colored with a dark head, and it'll also be quite large. If you have small white grubs, they're probably just opportunistic maggots (fly, perhaps) that are feeding on something tasty down there. If you are finding them around rotting rhizomes, they're just feeding on the rotted tissue. They won't damage healthy rhizomes.

they are the big borer. and i have another 500 hundred coming in 3 weeks what do i do i have never had this before , thanks to all for the help.

There is lots of info if you google for Iris Borer. Here's a link with some helpful information:

http://www.bachmans.com/retail/tipsheets/insects/DealingWithIrisBorers.cfm

cooks, I ran into Iris Borer this year, and the only thing you can do at this point is to dig and divide and remove all the infested rhizomes you can. good luck!

Cooks:
While the Merit won't help you at this point, you should try to dig and get rid of as many of the borer (if indeed these are the iris borer, not maggots or lawn grubs) as possible so they won't infect your new iris.
Make sure they are really the iris borer: the creamy pale pinkish colored ones with the rust colored heads. (not the white lawn grubs that are kind of hard and curved). Should be at least an inch or so long by now, and ready to pupate..although at this point most iris borer have pupated already. Pupa are shiny brown capsules about an inch or so long, buried in the soil..
Laetitia

can you take a picture of the critter and post it here

they are the iris bore, and i don't know how to post a picture i got the camera that can take the pic and down load to comp but i don't know how and my dd is overseas for our free dom.,,but i do have their little ones,wheil mom and dad are over there. hands very full a3 year and a13 month old and i was told the heart is not runing right again and i will not tell the dd and hub cause i want them to come home in goodshape. so i cannt tell them i have a sis but she works 14 hrs a day not to much help i have big shoulders dd will be home in 8 months i can not wait.

I certainly wish you all the best, cooks, you have a heavy load and so do your daughter and son-in-law. I wish them every protection in their path back to you and their little ones. And maybe they can show you how to upload a photo then.

Is this your varmit!? I figure if you can't post for us, I can post a pic of an Iris Borer and you can tell us if this is it! Hope it helped. Godspeed to your children!

IRIS BORER

If your Iris plants are wilting, dig up the rhizome and you may find the larvae of the Iris borer moth. Once they open the plant up a soft rot bacteria often invades the tissue. When the worms are that deep in the plant the best control is to cut out the worm and soft tissue. A new product from this May that should help kill the worms is permethrin. It should be effective if used as the small caterpillars are crawling onto the leaf blades. See http://cf.uwex.edu/ces/pubs/pdf/A2611.pdf for more details.

trying for a bigger picture...

Please do NOT use any product containing permethrin in your garden if there is any possibility of a cat walking through the treated area. Permethrin is toxic to cats. A much safer and very effective borer control if applied early in the spring is Merit (active ingredient imidacloprid).

Laurie

Thanks Laurie, I copied that from the place that showed the borer, and I had no idea..great to know these things!! What GARDENS DON'T have CATS EVER???? Why do they make stuff like that?

Permethrin has been around for a very, very long time. It's even in some spot-on flea treatments for dogs. Unfortunately, folks tend not to read labels, and they figure what's safe for their dogs is also safe for their cats. So, many cats become ill or die after their owners use the dog's permethrin flea treatment on them. Unfortunately, the permethrin flea treatment doesn't even have to be applied directly to the cat. The cat can have a toxic reaction just rubbing against a permethrin-treated dog.

Permethrin in any form should not be used in an environment with cats.

Laurie

timeinabottle, do you have any reblooming iris? If so would you please share the list with me? I have added some but mine rarely rebloom. This year has been very harsh to say the least!

I also love you name, it was one of my favorite songs when I was a kid.

Back to the origional thread here, I just got my iris in from Blue J also, and will be adding to my posts on Garden Watchdog (I have rated them before).

I don't know how many I received total, but a lot of bonuses. Here's a picture of the irises. They are all, everyone of them, this nice.

Almost all their irises are 2.20. The one on the left is an IB, and any except for TB you get 2 for the 2.20.

Obviously I'm very pleased with them.

Out of the 73 I ordered they only had to substitute 2.

I ended up getting 91 iris in my Blue J order. As I had reached the 150.00 point, I got 30% off, so 91 iris for 116.76.

This message was edited Aug 23, 2007 9:51 AM

Wow! And Blue Jay has a great selection. But I am still receiving iris I ordered ages ago. 5 arilbreds arrived yesterday from the ASI, and I have more coming. Quitting has become impossible for me.

I think Blue J is closed for orders for the year, anyway. They start taking orders 1/1, and I was customer #11.

I know what you mean, Betty, it is addictive.

bluegrass mom I have only two rebloomers Clarence and twice thrilling. My iris have come down with a strange kind of borer. There is both an entrance and an exit hole in the rhizome. This happens within days. Thisis happening on a large number of my recent transplants and not at all on my established plants. Its almost as if they eat their way in and out in one day. I am going to lose some of these iris and some will be set back for a year or so. It certainly doesnt look like typical borer damage. Whatever it is enters and exits through the rhizome not through the leaf.

How awful! Do try to photograph it and put it on the insect identification forum. This is a critter we must all become aware of.

Are you noticing the holes in the morning that weren't there the night before? Since you live close, you might have the same problem I have with new iris from the west coast. The rhizomes are large and full of moisture, not dense and tough like the established ones here. I finally found out it was cutworms. If you dig in around and under the rhizome a little, you might find one.

I should have asked how big the holes are. Cutworms make a rather large hole... about 1/4 inch.

This message was edited Aug 22, 2007 7:37 AM