Re: Re: CULT: performance/southeast

Linda  --  I don't know how we achieve the irises you are looking for except
by trial, error and selection.  You've listed your really good survivors,
and I'm sure many of us have old goodies like HELEN COLLINGWOOD, STEPPING
OUT, etc. that bloom seemingly disease-free, surviving the depredations of
dogs, careless lawn cutters and letter carriers, year in and year out.  The
experience of more recent varieties going pfft! inevitably makes one wonder
if the older ones were hardier and the later ones weakened by
ybridizing  -- this despite the evident improvements that are all around us.
As I look at my seedlings, I see some that fit your sturdy, shrug-it-off
ideal, but can remember those among their siblings that just couldn't be
kept alive.   So, maybe this is just life in the plant world.

Meantime, belated thanks to Neal for putting us in the proper slough.  If
you do come up with the seedling you desire, Linda, you may want to call it
Despond Lily.  --  Griff

zone 7 in Virginia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda Mann" <lmann@volfirst.net>
To: "iris- talk" <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 10:20 AM
Subject: [iris] 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>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
> message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index