Joan, you have inspired me to try I. tridentata from the SIGNA seed
exchange - if there is any offered this year.
Besides the beautiful ones grown by Vic in Florida, has anyone else
grown or seen Iris tridentata grow anywhere else - especially in
areas with cold winters?
In Alaska, Iris setosa is a very long-lived plant. Alaska has great
summer growing conditions (for plants that do not like it hot) but
our cold soils are our major limiting factor (besides short growing
season for some plants.) Up here, Iris setosa have survived some
very tramatic conditions from heavy equipment, periodic flooding by
salt water, standing water, and very poor soils with a pH ranging
from 5.3 (and maybe lower ???) to 6.8 (and maybe higher???) I think
it is the summer heat (in other parts of the US) especially combined
with drought that kills them. (I cannot even guess what effect soils
with a high pH have on Iris setosa.)
Debbie
--- In iris-species@yahoogroups.com, "Joan Cooper" <joan78@...> wrote:
>
> There are several sibtosas in commerce, most from Tamberg in
Germany. Whether any of those is fertile I don't know, but they are
quite nice. As for the derivation of the name setosa, I always heard
it meant bristle, referring to the small size of the standards.
Strangely enough, I've grown the southerner (USA) tridentata in
Minnesota, zone 4. I've grown several forms of setosa, but they have
mostly not been long lived for me nor was tridentata though it went
through several Minnesota winters.. Joan Cooper
