Re: Cult: New garden bed

From: "Mike Sutton" <suttons@lightspeed.net>

We had some soil brought in this last year to raise an area of lower land.
The soil that was brought in was dug from the spot where all the soil
amendments were dumped.  Subsequently the soil was a very low 3.3 pH.  The
weeds would not grow, the bedding plants all died but the iris survived,
even bloomed.  They looked sickly and the fans were short and small but the
lived.  They were all TBs.  Food for thought.
Mike Sutton
-----Original Message-----
From: John I Jones <jijones@ix.netcom.com>
To: iris-talk@onelist.com <iris-talk@onelist.com>
Date: Monday, July 06, 1998 9:22 AM
Subject: [iris-talk] Re: Cult: New garden bed


>From: John I Jones <jijones@ix.netcom.com>
>
>Paul & Yvonne Tyerman wrote:
>>
>> As far as I know  so you may
>> need to neutralise the acidity of the pine needles.  You may have already
>> thought of this, but I thought I'd mention just in case.
>>
>
>Hmmm. when I read this, I said to myself "Hey, I would have said exactly
the
>opposite." That is,  that Bearded Irises are Neutral to Acidic lovers. So I
>went diving to the (little) reference material I have.
>
>AIS puts out a booklet titled BASIC IRIS CULTURE. In it they write "Irises
>like...lots of sun, good drainage, good air circulation around the plants,
and
>a slightly acid soil."
>
>Ah ha, I thought...(strut, strut, head swelling)
>
>In Bill Maryott's booklet IRIS Q & A, he writes "Irises will thrive in most
>any soil as long as it is well drained."
>
>Hmmmmm, I said to myself. (ssssssssssss - sound of major deflation)
>
>Then in A GUIDE TO SPECIES IRISES THEIR IDENTIFICATION AND CULTIVATION, P
>Maynard writes "Irises have different requirements for soil pH and,
although
>each is tolerant to a considerable degree, will not perform well if grown
in
>soils outide their natural pH range. As a very broad generalisation (sic)
the
>bulbous irises and bearded types prefer a soil pH near to neutral or
above."
>
>Hruumph, I said, maybe I should just ignore the whole thing....
>
>:>))
>
>John                     | "There be dragons here"
>                         |  Annotation used by ancient cartographers
>                         |  to indicate the edge of the known world.
>
>John Jones, jijones@ix.netcom.com
>Fremont, California, USA, Earth, USDA zone 8/9 (coastal, bay)
>Max high 95F/35C, Min Low 28F/-2C average 10 days each
>Heavy clay base for my raised beds.
>There are currently 83 Iris pictures on my Website. Visit me at:
>http://members.home.net/jijones
>
>Subscribe to iris-talk at:
>
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>
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