>That's Puragtory!?! That's Beautiful!!
Not those in the foreground, Ann. Only those on the far side of the barbed
wire fence by the gate. Where the 'blues' are showing. It's close, but not
in the yard. Conditons are considerably different considering how close it
is. Those in Purgatory are planted on the field margin. The soil was not
amended and is extremely tight red clay. A day or two after a rain and you
can barely scratch the soil it's so hard. Iris that get planted there are
those that I don't really work with, but for one reason or another am
reluctant to toss them directly on the compost pile. Grasshoppers ravage
them every year. Cows occasionally get in the field and walk over them, the
dogs consider it part of their rabbit chasing grounds (they know better than
to run through the iris if I'm present, but sometimes ignore that in the
field planting). If you could enlarge the photo you would see Diswun
sitting just on the edge of Purgatory. There have been a lot of
non-survivors when they've been relocated here, but that gives me room to
move something else into the rows. The photo of the attached clump is
growing there. It was a sibling cross from the MH sdlgs in the foreground
of the other picture and I ran out of room when planting in the new seedling
beds. Being a lower priority, they got stuck in Purgatory. About half
didn't survive, but this flourescent yellow and some siblings are doing
well. I actually have access to water here - and I'll need to water
thoroughly in order to dig and toss some this fall. Not even using the pick
axe would be enough to pry a clump out of the concrete-like soil there. As
a general rule, though, these get no supplemental water. They're pretty
much on their own.
Donald
