Re; iris heights

Tom T. Little writes...

>There's always some TBs that fall in the
>BB height, some IBs less than 15 inches, and so on down the
>line. Seldom if ever do any grow taller than the registered
>height.
>
>So I'm wondering--what are your experiences? Are the registered
>heights pretty much "on the money"? a little high? a little low?

With very few exceptions, iris in my garden are shorter across the board
than their registered heights.  TBs stretch up to border size, MTBs grow to
IB heights, the IBs would make you proud as SDBs and so on down the line.
And yet, and yet... about 15 percent of all classes grow to registered
height or exceed it despite all. In WELL prepared, virgin soil, in the
second year after planting nearly all classes perform 'up to the book.'
>From there on it is down hill all the way.

Ever notice, many display and commercial gardens will 'hill up' the iris
beds until they are about 4 to 8 inches above the walkways? You come away
from that experience much dissatisfied with the 'home crowd' iris. Also, in
sharp contrast to backyard gardeners, display and commercial enterprises
grow iris in soil that is new to iris by; rotation, importation or
sterilization. All these methods encourage supermaximum growth.

Best regards,

Mike Lowe, Virginia, USA
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index