Re: CULT clay soil, deer and borer
- Subject: Re: CULT clay soil, deer and borer
- From: g*@aol.com
- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 14:24:46 EDT
Laurie wrote:
"I believe the compaction of the clay soil causes as much or more trouble
for the irises as any drainage issue. Unfortunately, compaction will always
be a problem here, regardless of my soil type, because of the frequent deer
traffic over my iris beds."
Laurie,
I think the compaction not only holds the water in the roots to promote rot
above and below but doesn't allow air in and suffocates the roots. Does that
make sense?
The deer problem can be solved easily. Did you see the movie DOC HOLLYWOOD ?
Just, I know this is gross, save your urine or send your husband down to pee
around the perimeter. Then the deer stay away.The deer were jumping my
vegetable garden fence and this method worked great.
The borer ugh! The end of october I cut all iris down to three inches and got
rid of that debris. I think the iris are pretty much dormant then and we are
cutting off the leaf part that eggs were laid on in September. It seemed to
help.
This spring while digging I found some borer pupae that had not
hatched/matured and they were still viable. This tells me the borer has a
continuing life cycle not a set one as we thought. The same thing happened
last year and I wrote Bill Shear and offered to send them to him. But I guess
he doesn't want the borer either!! I do think this bears studying.
Doreen F. McCabe gardenhous@aol.com
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