Re: Re; Cult rate and bloom

From: John I Jones <jijones@ix.netcom.com>

Gardenhous@aol.com wrote:
> 
> I guess something is wrong.  I planted with  peat moss and alphalfa pellets,
> sprayed with Bt and cygon, water regularly except when raining which it did
> alot of here,but no signs of rot.  Fertilize occasionally and let nature take
> it course.  So I am perplexed.  What do you think?

Sounds like you are doing lots of things right...

I was going to ask how much sun they are getting, but looking back you say you
are using 1/3d of an acre, so it sounds like they would get enough sun (4-6
hours per day) unless you have some very tall trees in the area. It also
sounds like some of your cvs are increasing and some are not.

I guess I would have several suggestions: 

Get a soil test. However if your vegetable garden is doing well, your soil is
probably ok if it is reasonably uniform across your property. Have you grown
things in this area before? Is there any correlation between where the irises
are in the rows and their performance?

Fertilize in the Sep/Oct time frame (or 6-8 weeks before they go to sleep for
the winter) and then again 6-8 weeks before they bloom. Use something balanced
10-10-10 or the like.

Sometimes iris from widely different environments take several years to
accomodate a new home. Depends a lot on the magnitude of the differences. Have
you bought any irises from suppliers in the east? How well do they do by
comaprison?

A good source of advice would be from a local iris club, even if all you do is
call and chat with someone on the phone. There are several iris-talk
subscribers from the NY, MA, NH area, hopefully they will be able to add
something here.

John                     | "There be dragons here"
                         |  Annotation used by ancient cartographers
                         |  to indicate the edge of the known world.

John Jones 
To reply to me personally click on
/*@ix.netcom.com
j*@ix.netcom.com
Fremont, California, USA, Earth, USDA zone 8/9 (coastal, bay) 
Max high 95F/35C, Min Low 28F/-2C average 10 days each
Heavy clay base for my raised beds.
There are currently 83 Iris pictures on my Website. Visit me at:
http://members.home.net/jijones

Subscribe to iris-talk at:

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/iris-talk

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help support ONElist, while generating interest in your product or
service. ONElist has a variety of advertising packages. Visit
http://www.onelist.com/advert.html for more information.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index