Re: Louisianna experience anyone?

Bob asks:
>My question is, do Louisianna iris grow tall enough
>to be visible toward the back of a border?

Bob, size varies among LA cultivars and some may grow 4.5-5 feet tall, but
even the tallest-rated plants will not grow up to expectations unless given
maximum culture. That means rich soil, lots of water and good sun. Lots and
lots of water. At a recent judging school she conducted, Marie Caillet
remarked that the cultivar named for her, MARIE CAILLET, grows 3 feet tall
in regular-bed soil in her East Texas garden but 4-4.5 feet tall in her
pond.

Flower size and branching are also affected.

If we want tall LAs, we must give them max culture. Growers in Lafayette
have such a deep soil base and such a high water table they can trench down
two feet so the plants stand in water and yet have plenty of fertile, acid
soil beneath the bed. They talk about growing their plants in mixed borders
with other perennials, but when you walk among those "regular beds" you see
here and there the mud pipe-stacks of crawfish, which live in very moist
circumstances.

So to grow tall LAs, you will need to give them a lot of water. People have
picked up the idea that LAs can be mingled in regular beds willynilly and
watered once in a while, but the resulting plants don't look happy. One
only has to visit happy plants to see the difference. Happy LAs have
spotless foliage, often rippled by rapid growth in spring, and they
reproduce like mad. Some cultivars do "wander" and will send offsets two
feet or more away from the parent clump. Call them adventuresome.

They like rich, acid soil, heavy clay where possible, enriched with pond
muck and rotted manure. As Walter says, they need lots of sun, but mostly
during the late winter and spring when they do most of their growing. They
do not mind being shaded somewhat during summer and fall, which makes them
a good companion plant for deciduous trees around a pond or bog. But they
cannot compete well with invasive tree roots.

I have seen nelsonii blooming merrily tucked right up to a cypress. That
was in Abbeville, La., though, and the bog was ten feet away.

celia
storey@aristotle.net
Little Rock, Arkansas, USDA Zone 7b
-----------------------------------
257 feet above sea level,
average rainfall about 50 inches (more than 60" in '97)
average relative humidity (at 6 a.m.) 84%.
moderate winters, hot summers ... but lots of seesaw action in all seasons
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