Re: Culture: digging irises up
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Re: Culture: digging irises up
- From: C* C* <c*@pacbell.net>
- Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 14:19:26 -0600 (MDT)
Mark Thornsburg wrote:
>
> Okay... dividing season is upon me... And I refuse to do this in the
> heat of the day. My question is: on Titan's Glory, three separate
> fans put up 3 seperate bloomstalks. (BUT I only bought one rhizome.)
> SO... When I divide, I save these, right? They'll become mother
> rhizomes. Won't they???
Rusty:
When I divide, I save these, right? . . .Yes
They'll become mother rhizomes. Won't they??? . .Yes
But divide only every third year. Dividing too soon denies you the
glorious display of blossoms. In my experience, third year spectacle is
usually the best.
Dividing too late allows the tuber/rhizome mass to get too large to
manage when trying to remove them from the ground for separation. It
also crowds the plants and inhibits blossoming. I waited 'til the
fourth year in one bed and it almost took a crane to lift the mass out
of the ground and a sumo wrestler to separate the mass into replantable
tubers/rhizomes.
By the by . . . the rest of you folks . . . are they tubers or
rhizomes. I always thought they were tubers. I'm open to correction.
Or is this nitpicking?
Al Limberg
Concord, CA
campconn@pacbell.net
P.S. Be areful, when you separate, to remove all of the
rhizomes/tubers. I have found that even the smallest fragments, even
without fans, cling tenaciously to life and will flourish.
