CULT: Tale of woe & misery - long, long, long


Hello Folks,

Last Easter I was at near peak bloom.  Today, only ZWANENBURG has blooms.
It seems immune to late, hard freezes.  This spring does not have an
auspicious beginning.  The results of the freeze in the lower teens is still
having an effect.  Much of the new growth is deformed, like some poisons
that cause strange twisted growth before the plants dies (usually).  Bloom
stalks that are putting in appearance are showing the effects.  CITY LIGHTS,
and every other year bloomer for me, is loaded with stalks and one is even
showing color - at eight inches tall.  They will all be short if not
deformed.  The irises showing the most damage are in two new sections of the
series of raised beds.  Last year seedlings and new acquisition were planted
and I guess new ground and the increased warmth the raised beds seem to give
caused optimum growth at the wrong time.  A later raised bed, oddly, seems
to have fared better.  I didn't get it finished 'til Christmas, so the too
late planting time seems to have retarded growth and those show the least
damage effects from the freeze.  They probably won't have much bloom due to
the lateness of planting,  but as plants they are the healthiest and
happiest appearing of any.  The established plantings fall in between.  The
central fan in many of the seedlings has stalled in growth, so I probably
won't see a lot maiden bloom on those seedlings.

Our excessive drought continues.  Yesterday with rains all over my part of
Texas, I managed to get only 1/2 inch.  That brings me up to four inches
total for March.  Not good.  It was enough moisture that the freeze damaged
foliage showed signs this morning of coming down with a bad case of leaf
spot.  Everything got powdered with sulfur in hopes to contain it before it
gets rampant.  Until last year I hadn't ever had much experience with leaf
spot, so I don't know how successful my attempts at controlling it will be.
I thought it would go away on its own in our dry weather, but it got way out
of hand and by the time I tackled it the plants had to have been weakened.

Another bad note is it appears the scorch is not gone.  SHAMPOO, one of the
rare medians shows every sign of having scorch.  At first I thought it was
just freeze damage, but yesterday I concluded what I was seeing was scorch.
It will already be too late to salvage if it is.  Too bad, as this one
developed into a strong grower and heavy bloomer after being coddled for the
first year.  It was so hard to establish that first year, I don't know if
I'm up to replacing it and trying again.  A healthy plant is not immune to
scorch and it is so random you simply cannot anticipate what plant is going
to be wiped out.  And until a couple of weeks ago, this plant appeared the
picture of health.

To top it off, I think I'm looking a massive crop failure in the seedlings.
I collected 130 pods last year.  Six pods were planted green and the pots
stored in the garage fridge 'til I planted the rest as usual this fall and
then they were taken out.  A few seeds promptly sprouted on the green seed
pots and a few more have come up intermittently this winter.  But of the
remaining pots, only one has anything at all sprouted.  That one pot now has
17 seedlings.  While it started early, by now I should be seeing seedlings
in a number of pots.  So either they are late, like the rest of the iris
patch, or they aren't going to have good germination.  Since the one pot
started sprouting 5 weeks ago, I'm leaning to the latter.  I did do a couple
of things differently this time.  For one thing, I used a bought potting mix
instead of just throwing whatever I had on hand together to use for planting
the seeds (including used potting soil, leftover compost, yard dirt, sand -
just enough odds and ends to fill and plant pots with seeds).  I did better
without the potting mix.  I went back and checked to make sure it didn't
contain a pre-emergent herbicide, but the bag (a name brand) gives
instructions for getting superior germination by using for starting seeds.
Another thing I did was plant the seeds a bit deeper.  Around 3/4 to 1 inch
this time whereas in previous years they were only planted 1/2 to 1/4 in
depth.  I thought this might keep them from getting too dry after incipient
sprouting under the soil.  The one pot, of course, is not having trouble
with either the potting mix or the depth of planting.  Seemingly, the green
seeds didn't have trouble with the depth though they were a different band
of potting mix.  The only other difference I can think of on the one pot
sprouting is that it had started sprouting before the hard
freeze, so I brought it inside for the duration.  Actually, I brought in two
other pots without sprouts as well along with all the pots of seedlings.
They haven't sprouted yet either, but I wonder at what stage germination
might have been in among the pots left out in the weather.  I think I'll
never know why.  Nothing I can think of is entirely satisfactory.  Even
allowing for some crosses being difficult to break dormancy in naturally,
planting seeds too deeply, bad potting soil, hard late freeze etc., there
still should be a few sprouting in those other pots.  It's as if all the
pots were poisoned somehow and the one pot just got overlooked.  Well,
anyway there are more than 100 seedlings in pots, but more than half are
from the previous crop of seeds that started sprouting last fall and have
come up from time to time all winter long.  Those at least are still
sprouting if they started last fall, but there are a dozen leftover pots
that have nothing in them either.  There are even three seedlings from the
crop two years ago, but their identity is now lost, though there are only
about ten choices on what they are.

The last thing, of course, is that I'm behind.  That's really not that
unusual.  But not THIS far behind!  It's those raised beds I've been
constructing.  I've been so obsessive about completing them, everything else
has been neglected.  That means that all those oak leaves are still more or
less laying around the yard instead of being raked and run through the leaf
shredder.  So that in turn means that no matter how often I clean out the
iris beds, when it gets windy they promptly fill back up.  And I live in a
windy part of the world.  I am now working on those leaves since I finished
the last section of raised beds I've been working on last week.  Now the
next run will be on the opposite side of the yard where the proposed first
section immediately is going to have to go over a limestone ledge
outcropping.  Dynamite, maybe?  It's a chore that would be easier if I
didn't have to pick through rocks.  It took me two weeks to dig out a
sandstone boulder on the last section and then it took the 4WD pickup with
chain to get it pulled out of the way.  Nice big flat rock, though, about 10
inches thick.  Along with the other really large flat ones it has made a
nice walkway out of the yard gate that leads to the pasture.  Of course, the
riding mower has gone on the blink at the beginning of spring growth.  A
necessity to keeping an enormous yard from promptly turning back to pasture.
Oh well, weeds are green.  Though some of those are in short supply due to
the drought.  I'm actually missing seeing all the henbit bloom.  I like the
way it looks when it greens up early and blooms, but what is there this year
is tiny and stunted due to the drought.

There are a few positive things.  I did have some I. hoogiana come up and I
thought it had all died.  The spurias are finally beginning to make some
good sized clumps.  They seem very durable in our weather patterns, but are
slow to get where they need to be.  I don't know how they will make it as
blooming plants here, though.  They bloom so late they end up trying to
bloom in scorching hot weather and the few bloom stalks I've had have
suffered from the heat and being eaten to oblivion by bugs.  As plants they
look nice right now.  The most attractive of all the iris as foliage plants
in their spring growth period.  Also, yet again, some of the Siberians have
survived another year of drought and are putting back out.  To wit the
Louisianas.  The LAs are very tough in terms of plants, but unless I can
ever get them situated so they get more water, their bloom is going to be an
iffy thing.

I guess I could just swear off trying any of this.  It wouldn't be the first
time.  But I've more or less quit doing it.  That has been pretty much like
New Year's resolutions.  Hasn't ever lasted very long.  I quit making those
altogether a few years back and I guess gardening would be pretty much the
same.  I do think I'd start it up again at some point in spite of knowing
how frustrated I was going to be at times.

Happy Easter, if you've managed to wade this far through it all.  May your
garden wear Easter clothes all summer and fall.

Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone 7b, USA




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