Re: CULT: Dried Rhizomes
- Subject: Re: [iris-talk] CULT: Dried Rhizomes
- From: C* D*
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 22:13:50 -0500
Here in the gardening section of our large home renovation centers ,
dried rhizomes that have been stored over the winter are sold in what
seems to be cedar chips or another pinkish type of shredded wood. The
rhizomes are almost completely dry, you have to peel back the dried fans
first to see if any green is remaining down at the base of the fan.
I am admittedly a great fan of these iris bins and frequent them often.
After pulling off the crispy parts of the dried fans I soak them in the
regular 10% bleach/water solution and pot them with a good potting soil
and bone meal. They grow like hell, especially under the Grolux tubes.
Some of the more vigorous ones have even sent up stalks for me in mid
June after being planted out in the garden.
Being from the great white North , purchasing these dried up rhizomes is
a great way to start gardening while the six foot snow banks ponder the
notion of one day melting when the sun decides to crank it up a notch.
Until then I continue to grow irises, Hosta, and Daylilies in the
basement.
Buy only the rhizomes that you can visually inspect , many of the
packaged varieties like Holland Bulb Market or Plant Smart have tiny
shriveled or completely dead rhizomes cleverly hidden in saw dust. I
feel sorry for the thousands of people who buy them only to discover
that they've wasted $1 or $2.
Back to Survivor
Chris Darlingon
Soon to be in Lafontaine Quebec on almost an acre of land :-)
wmoores wrote:
>
> On 28 Mar 01, at 14:10, John Reeds wrote:
>
> > Welcome aboard! If you can't find any local growers, there are plenty of
> > great catalogs all around the country (not to slight the Australians,
> > French, etc.). Just don't buy dried out rhizomes at your hardware store
> > or from miscellaneous bulb catalogs like Spring Hill, Michigan Bulb, or
> > Henry Fields.
> >
> > John Reeds, in southern Calif.
>
> For this area, the dried out kind are the very best rhizomes
> available, but not those from the suppliers you listed as they are
> almost always incorrectly named.
>
> The rhizomes we get from the West Coast are instant rotters if not
> dried and cured for a month or so. Sometimes, upon arrival, you can
> literally shake the water out of the rhizomes from that area. To
> plant them in the hot sun on arrival without drying them out is
> inviting disaster. Many people here even dry out their own plants
> for months before transplant, and when planted they take off like
> sage hens.
>
> This is another example where cultural practices vary across the
> country.
>
> Give me your dried, small, shriveled rhizomes any day. Don't send me
> the hockey pucks, as somebody recently described West Coast rhizomes.
>
> Walter Moores
> Enid Lake, MS USA 7/8
>
>
>
>
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