Your garden photos make me envious. They are beautiful. You ought to be able to grow just about anything. Here, when I have trouble with ABs being durable from season to season, I try to plant them in what I call 'sand beds'. Basically that's just prox a 4" layer of course creek sand on top of my natural soil with the rhizomes planted in that sand layer. Once they get established, they have survived to return every year. Getting them established is about the same as for regular soil, but once they make it their home they've never declined and disappeared. That is a problem with some ABs. It's also a problem with some TBs, but I've never tried them in a sand bed. I think the sand works both as a mulch and keeps the rhizomes free from some microbial action they object too when conditions are wrong. Whatever the reason, it has worked on some that have been temperamental in regular soil.

Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone 7b, USA

--- In iris-photos@yahoogroups.com, "El Hutchison" <eleanore@...> wrote:
>
> Found another picture for you, from June 1/09, south bed looking east, towards the driveway. These are mostly SDB's blooming then. My little 5 pound toy poodle is so nicely sitting there on the path.
>
> El, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Z3
>