What's wrong??

I have several fans that are turning brown from the tip down.

On a couple clumps, the whole thing is brown while other near-by clumps are fine.

Any thoughts or assistance would sure be appreciated.

Sorry, meant to include another pic. (disregard those weeds!)

Check the rhizomes underneath those browning fans. If they're spongy or mushy, you've got rot. If they're hard, you may have scorch. In any event, I recommend you cut the affected fans and their rhizomes away from the rest of the clump to try to minimize the possibility of the problem spreading to the other rhizomes in the clump.

Laurie

Moby, what caused or what did you do to kill the grass, or weeds in the pictures to the right of the iris? Use roundup by any chance?

Ah, herbicide. That hadn't occurred to me. That might be it, though it does seem odd that only the central fan in that first pic was affected if it was herbicide.

The second pic looks a lot like what happened to one of my clumps of the MDB, Mighty Mouse last year. It was a large, healthy division that I moved to another bed. Within a few weeks of transplant, the whole clump started to brown like that. I thought I was going to lose the entire thing because it looked miserable for the rest of the growing season. This spring, however, it is recovered and growing well. I still have no idea what happened to it last year, but I'm glad it got over it.

Laurie

That 'dead grass' is just lawn clippings.

I had fantastic looking clumps going in to last fall. This early spring everything was coming up well but then found a ton of rot ~ and it seems like it started with the biggest and healthiest rhizone in the clump and went from there. And this is with rhizomes that were fully exposed above the soil. The only thing I did out of the ordinary was last Fall, due to a bad case of thrips, I cut all the foliage and treated the garden with Ortho.

Other than that, I am at a loss. Thanks for your input.

Am I right in seeing clover along the rhizomes? If so, it may be holding water which can cause rot. I agree in removing the brown fans away from the green ones & make sure the problem isn't spreading.

Looks like scorch. Here's an article that may be helpful. http://www.herbs2000.com/flowers/i_pests_dis.htm The info about scorch is at the very bottom of the page. I lost one clump to it 3 years ago, and one this year. I dug and tossed them. The cases were isolated and I haven't had a problem with it spreading.

Good Luck... Dan

I asked about the herbicide, not because it looked like herbicide damage, but I saw someone that had killed nearby plants using herbicide on a sponge, and instead of drift, it travelled through the roots into the iris roots and turned some of the iris fans brown. Wierd.

Well, obviously that's not it.

Thanks Dan, the article on scorch seems to hit on all the symptoms. Guess there going to be a lot more digging in my near future.

Looks like I have the same problem. This is Chanted. It just started looking bad all at once. The other ones near it look OK. Must be related to this cooler, wet weather.

And this is a tall bearded way in the back.

Bummer.

Plants with scorch have reponded to heat, hot driveways etc. But do get them out of the beds as insects can spread it. If you're not a member of the Lincoln Iris society get in touch with them for treatment suggestions.

Does either of you have a pet puppy? Mine occasionally "marks" his territory in various places in the garden. A male pup is more like to find tall grass and thing like it to do his marking...Just a thought.

I am a member of the Lincoln Iris Society.
Nope, no doggies. No warm, dry weather either ~ at least not any time soon. Lincolnitess does have a dog but he's so tiny I doubt he could lift a leg to anything but ants. A real killer dog. Likes to hijack cars, too. :)

I noticed a similar problem just this evening with a clump of tall bearded. The clump is rather crowded since I should have divided it last fall. I noticed a couple of fans rotting at the bottom -- they pulled right out (and they had that rotten smell). The fans themselves were not rotten. I don't think any of the rhizomes are mushy -- at least not yet. Many of the fans have markings (brown spots) similar to what you see on daylily leaf streak. We had about an inch of rain yesterday. I was wondering if it could be caused by a fungus of some sort -- since the day before the rain everything was fine. Nights this week have been rather chilly. Do any of you know of a solution that can be applied to control this -- or is it enough just to remove the affected rhizomes?

Edited to add that the affected fans were on the outer edge of the clump -- not in the center.

This message was edited May 9, 2008 9:31 PM