Re: Snapping vrs cutting bloomstalks
From: "Patricia R. Wenham" <prw@televar.com>
Hello,
I guess I will get in the snapping/cutting discussion too. I believe Jan is
correct in the assumption that soil has some bearing upon whether you must cut or
snap. I had extremely sandy soil with no rocks and snapping just did not work.
It did bring up the whole rhizome. I tried standing on the rhizome and found
that only caused the rhizome to break off and come up. I watered the soil and
had no better results. I left the stalk until the ground froze and if it froze
with enough moisture in it I was able to snap the stalk off but not necessarily
cleanly at the rhizome.
I had a friend who had been growing iris for over fifty years, in the same place,
and she showed me how to remove the stalks on her iris. It was easy and my first
try, as well as later tries, in her garden worked like a charm. When I came home
and tried it up came the whole plant. As she got older and became ill I worked
in her garden to help her clean it up. I could find only one thing that was
different there than in my yard and that was the soil. She had more clay and
lots of pebbles and rocks. Everything was bound together and seemed to hold the
plant in place when the stalk was snapped. I am in a new area but I still have
no rocks so I will see what works here and try to remember to report on it later.
Patti
p*@televar.com
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