Re: CULT: performance/southeast

Not sure what I want to say .... thinking out loud here...

The topic is evaluating performance in the slough of despond
(southeastern US zone 7/8).  There are several components:
1) survival,
2) durability/persistance with neglect, less than desirable garden
conditions, less than optimal gardener
3) reliability of bloom over several years in spite of variable weather

Bill B is interested in figuring out/preventing/curing soft rot (I think

I got that right?).  I just want cultivars that are the most able to
shrug off diseases, including all kinds of leaf and root bacterial and
fungal diseases, without treatment.

So my 'survivors' don't necessarily survive in other challenging
climates and they certainly aren't rot "proof", just have high ability
to switch from growth to defense & repair when needed.

Looking at Bill's photo and description of torturing iris rhizomes in
plastic bags, I suspect few, if any, of my 'survivors' would survive
those conditions!  I suspect some cultivars perform better in my
extremely well drained gravel soil and have less rot than some other
gardens with clay or even loam after our summer tropical rains.  But
mine can have a lot of drought, freeze, and foliar disease damage.

Bottom line - irises that I prize, the ones I call survivors, have the
ability to increase (or at least replace themselves) reliably and bloom
normally nearly every year, with some weed removal (Roundup between rows

plus some hand weeding), fertilizer and lime, little or no cultivation,
no reset, no matter what the weather does.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure that a breeding
program selecting for 'rot resistance' would ensure an iris would thrive

here.  Sure wouldn't hurt <g>, but wouldn't be a guarantee.

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
photos archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>

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