Re: JIs

	Since I am almost a novice grower of JI's, I hesitate to 'reveal'
what I do - but - we are very lucky in having a fairly acidic soil and
I do use a pine needle mulch which I have been doing for years before I
even heard of JI's.  We live surrounded by pine trees and we collect the
needles by the bushel.

	We also do the 'manure bit' when we first till the bed and pretty
much adhere to what people have said letting the root system develop in
order to have healthy and sturdy plants. I also work peat moss into the
soil when I do the manure (aged at least a year - we use the real stuff
from a farm up the road).

	Someone mentioned peonies - I do work bonemeal into the soil
 when first planting them - then they are on their own. They do well
here since they like the cold as opposed to me..:)

	Ellen Gallagher 


On Fri, 5 Apr 1996, Nell Lancaster wrote:

> Hi Carolyn,
> 
> You mean *lowering pH for Japanese irises, right?  The acid side of the scale
> is numbers less than 7 (neutral), the alkaline side above.
> 
> Looking forward eagerly to non-chemical acidifying suggestions. I know I
> couldn't succeed with Carol Warner's JI methods here:  our 'soil' is red clay
> over a substrate of limestone, and the water from springs and wells is very
> alkaline, up to 8 in most parts of the county.  As a result, I'm only growing
> one Japanese iris (I. ensata 'Variegata'), primarily for its foliage, in a spot
> where it catches the overflow from the rain barrel (much lower in pH than our
> groundwater).
> 
> Nell Lancaster 75500.2521@compuserve.com    Lexington, VA, US  zone 6b
> 
>
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