Irises in Lake Charles

From: "Patrick O'Connor" <swamp@ix.netcom.com>

For Robert Turley:

I live in New Orleans (actually, Metairie), but gardened and grew Louisiana
irises in Baton Rouge from the mid-70s until a year or so ago.  I just
recently vacated a community garden spot in Baton Rouge (sold to
developers) and have everything here now, much of it in pots, like you.

I have had one experience associated with moving Louisiana irises to New
Orleans that is something of a puzzle.  Although I grow some irises in
front of my apartment, most of my irises here are in a community garden in
the City.  New Orleans has a program called Parkway Partners through which
they will help people establish gardens on vacant or unclaimed land.  Often
this is done to rid a neighborhood of an eyesore.  Sometimes the city will
tear down an abandoned building, or remove junk from a lot in the older
parts of town.  My irises are in a garden that was the site of a former bar
that was in a residential neighborhood.

When there is a suitable space and neighbors agree to develop and maintain
a garden, the City will build a fence, and provide new soil and water.
They do not till the existing soil, which in New Orleans is often fill and
contains everything imaginable, especially on the community garden sites.
Instead, they purchase a mix from a business across the river, called
NuEarth, which recycles.  I don’t know what they recycle, but I intend to
find out.  

The mix is medium brownish gray in color, very sandy and does not give the
immediate appearance of being highly organic.  It is nothing like a soil I
would have chosen for Louisiana irises, although it is what I imagine a TB
grower would like.  It is very light, and water runs right through it. It
is weed free also, or starts out that way.   The beds are raised with
railroad tie borders placed on top of the indigenous soil.

I was very hesitant to plant Louisianas in this stuff.   But last year, I
was relocating the plants late, just after Thanksgiving, and I had no
alternative place.  This spot was free, sunny, open and weedless.  I dug in
a great deal of commercial fertilizer, and planted immediately.

The results were amazing.  The irises did not do too much through the
winter, and I was convinced as late as March that I would get no bloom,
even though the foliage growth beginning January-February was spectacular.
(They did bloom later than other Louisianas in New Orleans, not surprising
since they were on Baton Rouge time and planted late).  But when the bloom
came, it was the best I have had in terms of quality (but not number) of
stalks.  And the plant growth was incredible.  The increase exceeded
anything in my experience.  The rhizomes now are huge, easily rivaling the
monsters that come out of California.  The seed pods produced were larger
than normal and almost all my relatively few crosses “took”.  (I attribute
the latter to cool weather, however).

I will say that it was a wet winter, and with a sprinkler system, they have
had plenty of water on a consistent basis.  Nothing has gone dormant.  The
foliage on almost everything still looks good.


My previous experience was not bad.   I grew irises pretty well, when I did
the right thing by them.  In Baton Rouge,  I grew in both semi-shaded,
semi-boggy conditions and in full sun.  But except possibly for first year
beds, the growth of the plants did not begin to rival the experience this
year in New Orleans.


I am not sure what lessons to draw from this.  I want to learn more about
the NuEarth mix.  I am going to keep using it as long as these results
continue.  I find it intriguing that even after growing iries for these
many years and having read all I could find on their culture, I was still
taken completely by surprise by the performance this year under what I
considered counter-intuitive conditions.  I think we may have a lot yet to
learn about what these plants want.

Patrick


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