Re: IRIS-L digest 623

Carolyn's comments about the "bunny poo" got me thinking about my
growing practices and those used in other iris gardens I have known and
loved. 

We grow a few roses here (about 100  at last count) as well as the
irises, and heritage flowers.  I plant both roses and irises with a good
handful of bonemeal. The roses also get a heap of horse manure in the
bottom of the hole they get planted in. We sometimes use fish fertalizer
on bushes that don't seem to have transplanted well, but otherwise after
planting everything in the ground here has to thrive on neglect or it
doesn't stay. (We live on a farm and the flowers and gardens are
optional, not necessities of daily life.) I have had a few mini roses
not make it through the winter, and I treat them like annuals if I want
them again. I never mulch a rose, or offer it any other protection that
what it would have gotten if living in the wild. They do well here in
Zone 6-6A. 

I've always said that anyone who raises horses should be able to grow
great peas and tomatoes, and I grow both. Sweet peas are a favorite of
mine, and one of my hybrids, Vistas, was the first bi-color I had seen.
Heritage tomatoes are a special passion of mine, and I have many
interesting varities of them as well. The government owned Heritage
Gardens in various locations in BC here are where I learned about "bunny
poo". It is apparantely the only manure you can use fresh, and I have
seen wonderful results with their use of it. When I can, I mooch the
stuff from the girl down the road who raises bunnies.

Last winter we had a record snowfall. Instead of 4" (yes, inches) we had
4'4"! The snow did seem to make an impact on the gardens. The roses and
irises did fine, but the calendula and marigolds that I count on to
reseed didn't, leaving our usually lush looking flora rather bare. An
interesting thing about the snow melt was that when it melted we had
flooding, but almost as soon as that was over we were back to very dry
ground and have been irrigating since April which is normal here.

I have two irises here that came with the farm and which I have not been
able to identify. I've put their photos on our web site and wondered if
any of you have the time to browse over and have a peek, if you may
recognize them. You can see them at
<http://mypage.direct.ca/t/thymetoo/Iris.html> I haven't put any other
flower photos up due to server space constraints. I do have a lot of
horse photos online though. TIA

Another Thyme,
Sharron
Zone 6-6A - enjoying the desert here in BC, Canada
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