CULT: iris health

One of our club members has very healthy iris, reblooming regularly. This year's low humidity and drought has helped with the usual 'summer crud' (leaf spot, rot), and she's in a much better location than I am (re: air circulation and dew problems) but hers seem to be doing exceptionally well. I got to see them the other day, and they look healthy as can be.
She grooms them fairly regularly, plus they are in newly made raised beds in a mix of purchased topsoil (actually pasture soil that feels like it is mostly clay) and Miracle Gro potting soil that has never grown irises.
The key to hers doing so well, however, seems to be that she waters them <heavily> every day with the 'backwash' (i.e., dirty water) from her swimming pool, which is treated with non-chlorine algaecide and bactericide!
It's a fairly expensive specialty product, but I'm considering buying some to try on some of the potted store-bought irises, hoping that will allow me to switch to some kind of potting mix that will hold moisture better than this dirty perlite concoction. With ongoing drought that actually started last fall, it's too much work to keep them hydrated in the perlite.
This group seems to have pretty much shut down - hope enough people still reading that might find this of interest to make it worth going to the trouble of typing it up?? 
--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.DiscoverET.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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