Re: CULT: March freezes & soil

I cheated <g> - see photo in iris-photos archives titled something like
"resistance is futile" .  Actually, covering the beds helped some, but
for whatever odd reasons, the first night of the freeze (before I
covered the beds) was not anywhere near as severe here than it was in
surrounding areas. It hit the teens elsewhere, but barely reached 25
here.  It came right after all the flooding, and all I can figure is
that the surroundings were so saturated with relatively warm water that
it helped.

Neil M in NC said:
<I seemed to have had more damage this year than you reported from the
March
 freezes.>

Don't let all those rocks fool you - the soil here is extremely fertile,
high in organic matter, and deep, just very drought prone.  I lay out
rows (except for that small area of raised beds where we were looking at
some seedlings) with a subsoiler, which loosens the rocks, er, I mean
soil, down to about 2 ft.  Some of the rows have had huge volumes of
horse manure and mushroom compost added as well (6 or 8 inches thick).
If I irrigate, I can grow rutabaga sized rhizomes.  Maybe I need to
consider watering my pollen plants.   Or did you mean something else?
Like a bigger volume of loose soil?

Neil continued:
<Where I grow my principal breeding stock is in an area with soil much
deeper and much more nutritionally rich (thanks to a lot of additions!)
than that of most of your iris beds.>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8

Tennessee Whooping Crane Walkathon:
<http://www.whoopingcranesovertn.org>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
iris-talk/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
iris-photos/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>




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