advice

One of my iris beds is roughly 8x6 give or take a little. The past 3 years it has been rather quiet with the iris, dutch iris, and the daylillies I inherited from my mother. This year I topped dressed all of the beds with a mixture that must have had magic in it. They are all huge. In addition, our own Mitch Fitzgerald gifted me with many hybrids that bloomed beautifully. So here is my question, the hybrids and larger types have already bloomed. Now the Dutch Iris is trying to bloom and is so much shorter than the others, they are way, way under the foliage. Lost in all of this are the daylillies. So far not one scape.

Would I be doing damage if I selectively cut the top foliage about 10"s to the ground. Some of them must be almost 2 feet. I don't really know what to look for to thin them later in the fall.
The sticky really doesn't address this.

Thank your help.

Christi

Oh my, Christi, that's quite an ... um ... abundant planting you've got there. Didn't anyone tell you to give irises their space when you plant them? I'm afraid you've got quite the chore ahead of you, getting all of that dug, divided, and sorted out later this summer.

The first thing you should do is tag everything that blooms with the plant type and bloom color (or registered names, if you know them) so that you'll be able to keep everything straight when you start to dig.

It is generally recommended that tall bearded irises be planted 18-24" apart to give them room to expand without crowding each other too quickly. Unfortunately with as tight a planting as is shown in your photo, irises often develop leaf diseases because of a lack of adequate air circulation around the leaf fans. Your foliage looks very healthy right now, but if fungal leaf spot shows up, there'll be no stopping it in that bed.

Now that you know which of your irises bloom at which heights, you can replant in a manner that places the shorter plants at the front of your bed.

Daylilies don't generally bloom until after the bearded irises are finished, so don't worry about the lack of scapes yet. They'll likely start showing up soon.

It is generally NOT recommended to trim healthy, green foliage, as the plants need it to feed themselves for next year's bloom. In this case, however, cutting the iris foliage back a bit may be the lesser of two evils. At least it will make the shorter plants more visible until you can replant the bed to space and position your plants more advantageously.

Happy digging!

Laurie

Laurie, In the beginning of Spring 2005 is when this bed was originally planted. Only expanded it this spring as Mitch continued to bring his hybrids as he is moving from Texas to Oklahoma.

The ones that are so terribly crowded were planted in 05 as I dug them from my recently deceased Mother's collection. Until I top dressed this year everything was cool. We purchased top soil from Living Earth Technologies. They are owned by Waste Management. This particular mix was put together just for Dallas with all the right ingredients. Must be true. They start with soil that they have from composted kitchen garbage...big-time commercial. Add Lava sand, Texas green sand, and hardwood mulch from your own area. My entire yard/veggie garden/ and flower gardens are unbelievable. I even have EE's with blooms on them. No commercial fertilizer this year. Only my annual does of Epsom Salt.

So, that has left me constantly pulling and/or moving plants to keep them from being smothered. They should put warning signs on that dirt!

Christi

Thank you for your help. I know about the top foliage feeding the corms but also have been told that a particular plant won't ever bloom again...only its offspring. So how are you supposed to know which is which?

The rhizomes with bloomstalks coming out of them (assuming you haven't already removed the spent bloomstalks) are the "mothers" that will never bloom again. They may, however, still produce additional rhizomes (increases), so they are not necessarily without value. When dividing a large clump, however, you generally end up with a lot more rhizomes than you have room to replant. In that case, most folks trash or give away the "mothers" and only replant the largest of the unbloomed rhizomes.

Laurie

Thank you very much. You have definitely answered my questions. I know they are suppposed to be divided in the fall, however, under the circumstances would it be a bad thing to remove some of them now?

Since that bed is so crowded, I'd hesitate to do any digging in it until everything in the bed has finished blooming. If you accidentally disturb the roots of nearby plants, it may cause them to abort their bloom for this year.

This picture doesn't show the size of the blades as I had hoped. They are 2-3"s
wide and almost 3' tall. They have been in this bed for 3 years and were very average. After top dressing and sprinkling Epsom Salt, they simply went nuts.
Bloomed more than ever. The daylilly is in the front and they, too, are huge. Not like they have ever, ever been before.

Christi

So.....I have the same thing in my 3 year old iris beds, the iris are huge at least 6 inches. I put some type of granular bulb, root, rhizome feed on them in March. Can I cut the leaves down once they are finished blooming or do I have to wait until Fall? I already cut some that have bloomed because they were taking over. Would I be better off to just move them when they finish blooming?

I don't recommend cutting healthy, green foliage, as that is what will continue to feed the plant for next year's blooms. Reduce the foliage, reduce the plant's ability to feed itself.

Laurie

people around here just roll the foliage down to the ground and rubber band them. Of course they use the wide larger rubber bands so it doesn't cut into the leaf.

Hmm, that would seem to reduce the leaf surface as much as trimming the leaf would. I don't see the point or advantage to rolling the foliage and banding it. The plant still wouldn't have full leaf exposure to sunlight for photosynthesis. Also, rolling and banding the leaves would seem to leave them extremely vulnerable to leaf diseases with no sun exposure or air circulation around the leaf surfaces.

I used to see that done here and cannot remember why it has stopped.

Irises can be safely dug six weeks after blooming - In my area this begins in July. For now, I would just cut back the foliage enough to expose the buds (get them above foliage) where needed - not everywhere since the foliage is essential to providing nutrients the plant needs to produce good blooms in the following year. Daylilies will also do better when you divide them in the spring or fall when the temps are a bit cooler. Congrats on your wonder soil, by the way! Also - if you have extras to share when you get to dividing them the classifieds on Dave's Garden is a great way to make a little money from your extras. Many of us browse daily to see what's available there.

Thank you, Cathy. Since I have been the recipient of so many beautiful plants, I would be more likely to give for free. A friend has just left and is bringing his wife back to see the garden. Told him to bring several big boxes so we could share the bounty.

Hot here today already. Will probably just turn on the sprinkler system.