CULT: finding the "non rotters"
- Subject: CULT: finding the "non rotters"
- From: L* M*
- Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 13:41:07 -0400
<Is there a publication that lists the rotting potential of an iris or
does this knowledge come with experience in growing them? Connie z7
Chesterfield VA>
Don't we wish it were that simple! Unfortunately, irises respond to
different climates, soil makeup, and gardening style in different ways.
Until becoming part of this forum, I wasn't aware of how much difference
there is in how an iris performs depending on where it is being grown.
Some cultivars rot for me and not for others and vice versa. And that
variability can be as great between my garden and one down the road as
it is from here to California.
You are in Virginia, which is more or less the same zone as me, but
without the severity of temperature swings in the spring. So I figured
I might be able to guess at the rot potential of the cultivars you've
ordered based on my experience with some of them and guesses at the
others based on pedigrees and where they were hybridized. It will be
fun to try anyway. Folks in Arizona or other places with low summer
humidity and generally much lower annual rainfall probably won't be able
to guess.
When I first started asking experienced folks on this forum how to
figure out which ones would probably be the rotters here, they all said
to read pedigrees (as given annually in the Registration and
Introduction booklets and compiled in the 10 yr checklists - available
from AIS). When I tried to pin them down, they said to avoid lines
containing a lot of ancestors descended from I. mesopotamica. However,
SNOW FLURRY is out of that background and did quite well for me, so I
don't trust that as an indicator for my particular garden in our current
climate.
I did a lot of pedigree charting, and discovered that the irises that
were least likely to rot here and most likely to be reliable usually had
quite a bit of WHOLE CLOTH as well as I. pallida or I. variegata in
their pedigrees. But that wasn't always a sure indication. I ordered a
lot of historic irises that were in pedigrees of irises that do well for
me and most of them also do well for me.
After trying about 1000 cultivars, I have found a few <g> that thrive
here, so I look for other cultivars from the same hybridizers (not a
very successful approach), or relatives of those that have done well
here.
But that is really too limiting if you want to have much variety, & that
is why you will see threads asking about performance (i.e., good or
better growing red-bearded blacks re: recent thread about WITCHES WAND).
So, buy the checklists, spend the winter charting pedigrees, ask
everybody who will put up with you, then order whatever strikes your
fancy <g>. Recognize that the more exotic and newer a pattern or color
is, the more likely it will be a weak grower.
You can tell this is my favorite topic <g>
--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
iris-talk/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
iris-photos/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Will You Find True Love?
Will You Meet the One?
Free Love Reading by phone!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/7dY7FD/R_ZEAA/Ey.GAA/2gGylB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
