This is a great forum!

I have been watching this forum for about 3 days now and I have learned a bunch!! Didn't know that when you divide iris's it effects their bloom the following year, Didn't know that it can be beneficial to cut back the foliage right after blooming (but I do love the foliage!!).

Question, did I interpret this correctly. If you get spots on the fans and they are still blooming it is okay to cut the leaves (?) back and it won't affect the flowers?

Debby

I am new to iris's but love the beauty of the bloom and the beautiful fans of leaves!! I divided my old fashioned iris's and put in new ones. Took the ones I divided and made a new bed with them. I hope they bloom next year. Do they do better in full sun or part shade? Thanks in advance for any/all help.

Okay, here's iris 101. LOLO
I iris need at least 6 hrs of direct sun light to bloom. They need to be divided every 3-4 years, also helps to keep leaf spot and iris borer's under control, you can spray for these things as well. If you do not divide them they will get over crowed and you will find that they will bloom alot less. As far as fans, leave them alone, unless there is yellowing or spots on them. The only time I cut them back is when I divide, it keeps wind and rain from kicking them out of the ground. The fans are their source of food every year. You can cut off diseased fans while they are blooming, it will not hurt them, but when they are done blooming do cut the bloom stalk off, otherwise most of their energy will start going to the seed pod rather than the plant itself, and cut the bloom stalk as close to the ground as you can. In the Spring, pull off all of the dead fans that are laying on the ground. Clean beds are a must for me, and it just looks better. After you divide them, they may not bloom again for a year or two, some bloom the next year, but they have to establish themselves, I have a few that have not bloom yet and they are going on there 3rd year, but I just divided them to increase my stock. Fertlizing is a good thing make sure that the fertilizer is LOW in nitrogen otherwise they may rot, and make sure that the fertilizer does not come in contact with the rhizome. Example would be 5-10-10, the first number you would see on the bag is the nitrogen content, or you can use Super Phosphate, do this about 6 weeks before the first bloom and after they bloom, you will benefit from this. Larger blooms and increases. Usually leaf spot occurs from excess moisture, they say to not over head water them, but I think that most people do. I water the hole before I plant it, they really only need water their first year, maybe 1 inch per week, after that they sustain themselves, unless you are having a bad dry spell. Too much water will encourage rot. I hope this helps you out, it is an addicting hobby, look out, LOLO. Cindy

Mine were in the ground 2 years and I divided them this year.

I wanted to 1) Replace the old fashioned light purple ones with near blacks that I received in a trade and some pinks that I bought. 2) Divide what I had and create a new bed with my existing rhizomes.

I will be disappointed if I don't get blooms next year!! I didn't have many this year but I guess now I know why. Next spring would probably been my best for blooms. NEWBEES! But I think the deep purple and pinks are going to look good together, I hope!!

You can divide them sooner, you will actually have better production, but if you do not see a bloom for a few seasons, that is why.
Purple and pinks are great combinations, so are bright orange and deep purples, if you have a color wheel, look at it to see what compliments each other.
Off the subject of iris, babys breath and pink roses are beautiful together in a garden as well, those knockout roses are perfect !!!!!

The color wheel idea is great! Thanks so much for your help. Now let me think where is my color wheel....I'm off to go find it! I love Dave's Garden I can't even begin to tell you how much I've learned here and all the ideas I've gotten, oh yeah off to find my color wheel!

LOLOL !!!!

heres a video you might enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRp0r95MPB4

Thanks so much for posting the link, very cool videos of iris.

Very Cool!! Thanks, I enjoyed that. Would have enjoyed it more if they were MY gardens but enjoyable none the less! Thanks again!

helps with the withdrawal symptoms till next spring ^_^

Yes it does. Browsing gardening catalogs helps as well!! I am scouring the internet looking at iris's to purchase but it can get pretty expensive for 1 rhizome! I can't wait until the next gardening season starts. I'm even looking forward to cleaning up the mess winter leaves behind.

The more expensive rhizomes are the newer ones, over1,000 plants are registered with AIS, the international registry every year. As more plants of each cultivar are available the price drops. For the average gardener 5 yr. old plants are fine. For hybridizers, judges and peole who wish a certain color pattern or plant which is happy in their climate the newer ones are out there.

dpoitras, I live in Minnesota which is probably similar to upstate New York. I have found that dividing or planting new rhizomes to get bloom next year works best for me if I dig and divide in early July so the plants can get resituated. After the increases have some roots which should be around 4-6 weeks after bloom is generally OK for dividing. Also if your rhizomes are on the smaller side, it will probably take two years before you see flowers unless you replant in the first half of July. If you divide and plant after Labor day, there will probably not be much bloom until the following season. Also, for us cold climate types, it is a good idea to put 4 to 6 inches of straw over the newly planted iris when the ground freezes to protect the plants from heaving. The advice from 1913cat seems to be right on and I hope this helps you.

Irisguy it helps tremendously!! I'm going to print this thread for reference!

Irisma - It is very clear on how they determine pricing now. I would have thought I could have figured that out on my own and maybe would have with a little more thought but what you said makes perfect sense. The older the cultivar the more it has time to spread and be divided (and shared with others) the less the demand and the cheaper the cost.

People here use salt marsh hay for winter mulch, no seeds. Obviously alvailable only near the coast.Because they are available, both from our trees & the generous neighbors, we use pine needles after the ground freezes. first week in april DH blows them off with a leaf blower--less harm to the plants than raking.

If a newer plant has your favorite color, by all means try it. If you just want white, then there are older plants, although the newer ones will have more buds for longer bloom. I use white as an example there are many colors & patterns except true red. Although I wonder if the scarlet reds are necessary except they are a challange to produce. Last fall I had an stem of "iris red" sort of bronze mum left over from an arranging project--put it in a vase and enjoyed it very much. I realized that there are perfectly good bronzy iris which can be enjoyed. We always want something other than what is available.

dpoitras, well, up to a point it gets cheaper as it ages. Some irises are wildly popular but don't increase fast - their prices stay higher as demand builds. If an iris really catches on and is extremely popular, then it can stall at a higher price and stay there a while - the old supply and demand. The prettier the bloom, the healthier the growth, the higher in demand.

Overstocked irises are priced as nearly a give away.

One thing I've learned, you cannot depend on the photo 100%. A so-so plant may look awesome, while an awesome plant is not photogenic. Nor can you tell floriferousness, health, vigor, branch form, form or substance from most photos. Time and time again I'm disappointed when depending on photos. I've seen poor photos kill the sales of great plants, too.

One iris that I thought was horribly ugly in photos and text descriptions was Trade Secret. Another was Shadow Warrior. Both are very very pretty in the garden. My first year, I thought Lady Friend and Supreme Sultan, bonuses, were so ugly in Cooley's photos that I planted 'em where I didn't have to see them. They are both my favorites.

Bonjon, question, who is Cooley? I guess I will buy what I can afford and then determine what I like and don't like? Kind of sounds like buying clothes. Something might look terrible on the rack but when you try it on you love it.

google Cooley's Iris Garden

Schreiners is, I think, largest commercial grower in USA - I think Cooleys is 2nd largest 0 they are 13 miles apart near Salem Oregon

Wouldn't I/we love to live near there! Expensive but fun!

Hi Debbie,

I'm in upstate NY, up near Oswego. Welcome to this forum!

I just wanted to say, if you get a lot of snow, like we do, you are more likely to get blooms the year after you plant the irises. Our ground here didn't freeze all last year, due to the mild winter and significant snow cover. I planted irises right up to December (do not try this), and most of them bloomed. I didn't lose any.

I have also had good luck with Blue J. Iris. It's worth looking at their website just to see all the pictures.

Will certainly check out the site!

Where are you in NY?

Very close to Saratoga Springs. Where is Hannibal, I bet you get some razzing about silence of the lambs.

Surprisingly no.

We are about 3 miles from Lake Ontario, west of Oswego, about 55 miles east of Rochester.

So you get pretty good snow cover, also.

It's amazing what the snow cover can do for plants. Irises thrive with it. A very good protector for newly planted iris.

just be careful - Blue J, I've heard, has had a higher percentage of mis-IDs in the past, and for a while they had the rep of being hard to work with to correct them. I've heard they are working to correct. They were advocating clump growing rather than line growing. When I visited, it seemed to me some where growing into the ones beside them.

Some mis-IDs are inevitable - just make sure they are cooperative about replacing them.

Out of over 200, I only had one mis named. I didn't bother to contact them for the one. I probably should have, but I simply loved the iris and just let it go.

Garden Watchdog sure doesn't reflect that, Bonjon. If people are getting mis named irises from them, they should be putting that info in Garden Watchdog.

Here's a picture of the irises I received from them. I thought they were excellent.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=3881487

There are also many other fabulous vendors, some of them contributors to this forum.

Yes we get pretty good snow cover and cold. I'm trying to remember I don't think last year we got a lot of snow but the year before we got slammed! It's not that I don't like snow I love it!! It's the shoveling I hate!

thanks for the tip bonjon! Right now I am poking around the nurseries looking at irises. I'm so new to all of this I don't know what I want!! Well besides knowing that I want it all. To quote my boss "I want it all and I want it delivered!"

Well I say I am poking around but I recently bought 2 Edith Wolford rhizomes. I hope it's not too late to put them in the ground. I don't even have them yet!

like I said, this was a couple years ago, and i've heard they are working to improve that.

dpoitras, I will say if you join your local iris sociey club, you will learn so much from your neighboring areas on the best of the best from your area. Very educational and alot of fun touring other people's iris gardens. You can find out through the AIS or your Botanical gardens website where and when your shows and sales are, you can hook up with your club through those links as well.

bonjon, really, I have never had an issue with Blue J, But that is scary that they are all growing together. I am so particular about that. If mine even look like they are going to collide, they are divided and moved.

Thanks for clarifying that Bonjon.

It sounded like you were trying to steer Debbie away from Blue J. I hate to see anything negative about a company posted on this forum, unless someone is relating their own experience. To say you've 'heard' a company has a higher rate of mis named irises on this forum could really hurt the company. This forum on Daves Garden is a very powerful one. I would hate to see a company lose business because of what someone 'heard'. If someone told me they had a problem with a company, I would tell them to address it first with the company, and then steer them towards Garxen Watchdog. That way the company would have a chance to respond, to make it right, explain the problem, and what's being done to repair it, or deny the problem existed. In this case Garden Watchdog does not reflect Blue J sending out mis named irises, now, or in the past, and it certainly has not been my experience. So many variables exist in other peoples gardens. You can't know if they had a problem with labeling, maybe mixed up their labels. My granddaughter took a couple of mine, luckily I had the area charted, and when they bloomed could replace the labels.

I do appreciate your input about what you saw, that they had irises growing together in clumps, however.

I still feel Blue J is a good company for the prices they charge. On another garden forum, the hybridizer Walter Moores stated how happy he was with the irises he received from Blue J.


And Debbie, we sure have some good iris growers that participate in our forum here that you can purchase irises from.

LaurieF has Shadowood:
http://lfrazer.com/iris/catinfo.html

Irisloverdee has Snowpeak
http://www.snowpeakiris.com/

Weegy has Hanks Iris Garden
http://www.hanksirisgarden.com/

Stoneycreekiris---Katie
http://www.stoneycreekiris.com/

Robin Shadlow has Iris Sisters
http://irises.homestead.com/

And please, if I've forgotten anyone on this forum who sells irises, someone please list the webpage.

I should have explained, Polly, that I wondered how Blue J was growing irises so much cheaper than everyone else, and for so many varieties, so I'd researched it and put it in my notebook to visit sometime. As it happened in mid June 2006, we got the call that post-surgery MIL was dying, please come quick. She lives in Sturgis, and most off DH's family is in Rapid City, SD, north of Alliance. We couldn't afford to fly, so we planned to drive all night. But I started falling asleep at the wheel, and we stopped in Nebraska. In the morning, she'd vastly improved, so we detoured our route, over to Alliance and visited for three hours. Jedlickas were most kind, and very willing to talk about all sorts of growing and hybridizing tips. It was the last vestiges of bloom.

On my 2007 iris tour trip, I heard from two other growers that Blue J had purchased a great deal of stock from Riverview at very cheap prices when they were moving. Hence all Blue J's varieties and lesser costs. But on that 2006 trip, I changed my plans to purchase from them because Mr. Jedlicka went into great detail on his decision to clump grow instead of row grow. On viewing his garden, I couldn't make heads or tails of the growth order, and everywhere it looked like clumps were growing together of very similar colors. He did say he'd just bought 20 acres and had water rights for them, and was planning on expanding. He was incredibly hospitable, saying it was his daughter going to college for business degree and their website was her project. It had really changed things for them, from just being a local garden grower to a big mail order business. He did have his seedlings lined out, not in clump beds. They adore the fat fuzzy beards in their breeding program, especially in hot colors.

I kept seeing nearly identical plants all over everywhere. especially a lot of what looked like poor copies of some of the very best of the best varieties, like a poor copy of Starship Enterprise for example. Lots and lots of pale lavender to dirty white or silver colors. It was very disconcerting. These could very well be older intros. but it was enough so that I turned away from the bargains. When I started hearing of problems with shipments 0 and I read it somewhere on line folks were getting wrong plants 0 I thought to myself, "well of course." Wish I could remember where, but that was a couple years ago. at that time I perused sites like hort.net and gardenweb, not DG. This is my first DG year.

I am hearing positive about them now. Meanwhile, I've learned enough to know misIDs are normal, just got to be careful when ordering from any sellers that don't stand by their IDs.



This message was edited Sep 9, 2008 9:45 PM

By the by - the way to handle a misID is very simple.

Take a face forward photo of the bloom. Take a close up of the beard area for any detailing. Digital helps - you can email these without cost to you for photo copies.

Double check your labels - it's even easier for you and I to mess up with labeling! If you are certain it is wrong -

Contact the grower, if at all possible, by email.

Send them a photo of the bloom that grew- a digital photo can be emailed with your first contact. Confirm what their label said it should have been. In some cases, a plant's growth habit won't put up a nice bloom the first year - Starship Enterprise and High Master both did that here - and they'll tell you to wait a year and then contact them again. And by the way, some baulk at blooming after transplant, so you may be doing this the second year after purchase.

A nice comment and pleasant attitude will get you far. Anger never helps this process, so vent somewhere else. Let's face it, if you've ever divided more than one clump of irises, you know how easy it is to mix them up.

If you like the plant and bloom, ask them to please ID it if at all possible. They will need the beard detail photo to help them. Info on fragrance, height, and bloomtime may help.

Request a refund.

If there's any chance you will order that year again, ask for a credit against your next order instead. Suttons, when requested this, gave a credit AND put the correct plant in the next order. Growers want to earn the rep of courtsey and accuracy. But when you make your order, make sure you remind them of the credit and the mislabeled plant. Not everyone goes back to check their records about you!

I've had Suttons mislabel 3 in my first order, none in my 2nd order. Have never had problems with Cooleys or Schreiners mislabeling. My first order to Snowpeak was true, and Dee is very generous with bonuses. I'm still ordering from Suttons- their intros grow very well here, and they are equally generous with bonuses, bonus new intros, too, and very kind and sweet on the mislabels.

This message was edited Sep 9, 2008 10:49 PM

dpoitras, if you get involved in this much more, I recommend you see all the iris gardens you can. You will see so much and get so many ideas!

If you do get involved in an iris society, you'll find out there's an annual convention, where gardens are prepared a couple years in advance with all kinds of the best and newest irises and seedlings from all over. This year's was in Austin TX, I think next year it's in Kansas City.

want to see Lousiana iris in Rochester NY?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aD8vj8ivF8&feature=related

oh that is rich! love the way the camera zooms in on the nametag, and the way you can see the irises waving in the wind.

Thanks Taz,

I've been lucky enough to see them in person. When I first saw the garden, I couldn't believe they were LAs, and then when I found out more it got me started on growing them.

I'm only about 56 miles from Highland Park, and we go each year, once for the lilac festival, and once for the LAs.

It's a lovely place, and the irises are well cared for.

Here's the thread I did last year about the Iris Friendship Garden.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/740173/

bonjon that is good advice I am going to follow. I will look for an iris society in my area. I have been actually thinking about a garden club or looking into what the master gardener program is and if either program is for me.

Taz, beautiful. I enjoyed that

Polly, I'll have to check how far I am from Highland Park sounds interesting.

dpoitras Go on AIS website www.irises.org & look for local affiliates (with AIS) in Region 2 (NY).

dpoitras,
You are where I was just about 3 years ago. I have come to love iris growing, the AIS, and most of the iris growers mentioned in this list.
The iris community is interesting and pleasant and they work together through the AIS. If you can affiliate with a local you will have fun and meet like minded folk. If you affiliate with the national you can go to the national convention where you will meet hybridizers, growers, and just ordinary gardeners like me. You will learn about the incredible richness of the iris species -- small bearded iris which bloom early, tall bearded which are the most popular in most of the country, Louisiana which flourish in hot climates, but turn out to grow in more northerly climates as well -- we still don't know how far north they will grow, Siberians, Spurias and one of my favorites Arils and Arilbreds.
The people are nice and the flowers are stunning. You have stumbled onto a good thing.

You don't have to be an AIS member to attend the national convention. However some regions hold their regional meetings when the plants are in bloom & you can learn a great deal.