Prolific SDBs

Finished with 4 divisions, hope this has helped in seeing what we do.

D

Thanks so much, Dee! That was great, but gave me a few more questions. It appears that one of your divisions has no roots, or almost none. Am I wrong, or is it okay to have no roots? It also appears that the roots of another are facing what would be sideways. How do you deal with that? And do you do anything to treat the exposed areas (besides the bleaching and drying) to keep them from rotting?
Thanks.

Sharon

Great questions and hope I will supply you with the answers.:) First to be honest you do NOT roots for the iris to grow. Years and years ago the growers would shave all roots off. Just checked all the roots are correct but my honey was taking the pictures since he does not divide them ever except at plant back time. Needed someone to take pictures and did not check to see that the roots are all correct.

I have never treated them with anything but air and the clorex. Remember these are so hardy they can be left out of the ground for a couple of weeks. Would have to watch for aphids.

Hope this has helped.

D

Now during plant back that is completely different than digging for orders, and trades.

I never would have thunk!

Thank you so much for this demo. I never would have thought to cut irises like that.

Did all of you know to divide irises like this, or am I the only one out there that had no clue.

It does really make sense though. It's just like a perennial of any sort, or a potato that you plant sections of.

Thanks so much, Dee!

I don't know if I would have thunk it or not. Never have been confronted with such a clump. I have not done all that much iris dividing because all my iris are so new that only a few have needed it and my STBs are even newer than the rest. I had my very first STB blooms last spring.
I remember when our club asked me to help them with a dividing demonstration at the local farmer's market -- I told them I had no idea how to divide. They said they would teach me but it ended up being on a day I was out of town. So I really needed this explanation.

Polly now during plant back time, I just snap off the divisions as I also plant back the mother rhizome, which yes NEVER will bloom again, but will grow nice new rhizomes which will bloom.

This is how I cut when I am doing the orders if I do not have a ton of that iris. Now with something like the picture of Alpine Vista I would just cut either in half or thirds. I have started with pieces much much smaller than these. But remember it is not always the size that counts as some iris will never produce large rhizomes because of the genetic makeup. One TB iris that comes to mind is YES, small rhizomes but will clump up nicely always.

D

Yes, thanks Dee! That was very clear and enlightening. I never would have thought that irises could grow without roots, and the only way I ever divided them was when there was clearly a new tuber attached, so this is great news!

Dividing TB are easier most of the time, but there are a few that glow so close together that it is harder to divide them.

D

Happy Easter, hope yours is not going to be a wet one because here in the PNW it is wet.

We give a demo at our plant sale every year. We all brings ones that would end up in the compost pile and not with any names on it. As people ask us how we show them as it is easier to SEE than to READ.

We've been having a wet (if you could call it) spring so far too, following a wet winter. And last year being wet as well, I lost a lot of irises to rot. The DB's I got from you in the fall seem healthy despite being buried in ice this winter, though a lot of them got pushed up over the winter, but I snugged them back last week and don't think they're any the worse for it.
Thanks again - and Happy Easter to you too.

Sharon

That was great Dee - thank you! I never would have done that...reminds me of when I was learning to weave and I broke a warp thread, thought I would have to start all over again, pull one thread out of 100's and try to get it back through all the moving parts....but pulled out my book of tips and hints and she said just tie new one to the broken one! I never would have thought to do that, I was so afraid of making a mistake!

Happy Easter everyone!

Thank you for the pictures, Dee, that is the way we often divied the big rhizomes, but they do not get so large here. Roots well grow, but the plant will be slower to start adding to the leaf/flower area, so we try to keep as many roots as we can. cut back leaf area to discourage evaporation (not all the way--help!). when the rhizome which is now a division is replanted, I think it best to cut off the extra toe in our area to help keep 'new plant rot' at bay.

Question: Recently I read, and I can't remember the source, that iris roots die each year
and new ones are formed. Has anyone heard of that?

I have planted nubbin rhizomes which were dried and rootless. They did just fine. I just
planted them vertically with the live end sticking out of the soil. I have also cut rhizomes
into 2" sections and planted them. Most of the time they will put out new sprouts.

Yes, the first time you do it you wonder will any of them grow...trust me they do.

Give you an idea, I have by accident cut up an iris rhizome with the tiller once and put it on the every end of the compost pile a little away to see what would happen out of curiosity and the next year here were alot of little guys growing and they were NOT even planted just thrown on the grown. Now I would NEVER do that on purpose.

D

Lucy, I think one reason we have such good luck is being in Oregon, the perfect of everything for iris.
Oldgarden, that is correct, all roots die and all new ones form. Another experiment to try is with one you are going to give away, put in water and watch the new roots start to form.

D

Probably a lot of the iris "purists" would be aghast at some of the things the every day
gardener does and accepts it as the way to go. There is a lot of info on the iris forum
that is not in the books.

You are absolutely right, Oldgardenrose. I have learned so much here.

This is a pic of my dwarfs planted as tiny single fans last summer. They have at least
tripled their fans already and will probably put out more by this summer. I expect to see
some blooms by mid-May. From what I have seen, they should be planted at least 18"
apart in a permanent bed even though they begin as very small plants.

Thank you so much for all the info Dee. A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Thank you all and hope I answered each question asked. We all must learn and seeing helps better than hearing or reading as 90% of the world seems very visiual. I know I am.

D

Thanks Dee for taking the time to explain how to do this. I also had wondered about this because I have some SDB that are extremely crowded. It is really amazing how some of the information I have read about rhizomes isn't true for me. One thing I read was when dividing to put the RZs in the shade when drying them out. Well, as usual, I ordered more iris than I had room for, so I decided to just dig up the ones that weren't doing too good. It was July, and I just dug them up and threw them in a pile at the end of one row. They baked in the sun until the end of August, totally exposed. Almost 100% of them were actually putting out new growth. The ones on the bottom of the pile had rooted in the ground. I felt so guilty that I dug up along the fence and replanted all of them. None of them bloomed last year. Snow finally melted and I went out to see how my irises were doing, and the ones by the fence are doing fine and are the same size as the ones in my iris garden. Hopefully now I can get out and weed, Preen, fertilize, and spray.

Amazing how forgiving iris are!

Yes, both iris and daylilies are truly an amazing forgiving plant.

I am glad that I have helped in any way I can.

Always remember no matter take time to get your hands, nails dirty and to smell the flowers:)

Happiness is being in the garden

D

Wonderful tutorial, Dee! Exactly what I needed.

Thanks for the great photos. I've only been growing the SDB ones for 3 or 4 years and it's already evident to me that I will be doing a lot of dividing. I mostly snapped off the division last summer when I was dividing them, but now will use your method to save some larger pieces for myself. I have been suprised how much faster some cultivers grow than others.

Susan

The different cultivars have different genetic bgackgrounds. there are poor growing SDBs as well as anything else.

Yep, I noticed that. But wow, when they grow!

SDBs love New England & vice versa so they are my favorite class.

They do pretty well here as well. They were a pleasant surprise to me. I will grow more and more of them, I suspect. IB's, too.

have fallen in love with the IBs - they do well here, whereas I'm not getting much of anything from my SDBs.