Re: Iris color change
- To: i*@Rt66.com
- Subject: Re: Iris color change
- From: t*@Lanl.GOV (Tom Tadfor Little)
- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 12:53:34 -0700
Susan writes
:I am a beginner and have had an Iris garden, started with Iris from my
:grandmother's garden in the late 1960's. The Iris I have in my garden
:now was originally all purple. Now I have some white blooms. Is this
:normal? Any special instructions? I heard that white Iris will takeover
:all the other colors one may have in their garden.
Welcome, Susan! This is a rather common experience. The irises themselves
have not changed; chances are there were several different kinds in the
planting to begin with, and the white ones just didn't bloom for you
to notice them previously. Some varieties do grow more aggressively
than others, but it's not really related to their color, it just depends
on which variety it is and whether the cultural conditions are good or
bad for it. (There are vigorous whites and slow-growing whites, for
example.) Chances are the mix of colors in that planting won't change
an awful lot from year to year, although the better growing ones may
_eventually_ crowd the others out.
If you don't want to leave things so much to chance, you can mark the
ones whose color you like and dig them this summer, keeping them
separate from the others so you can keep track of them and keep them
growing well. The clumps are probably overdue for division anyway, if
they haven't been dug for several years.
Happy irising, Tom.
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Tom Tadfor Little tlittle@lanl.gov -or- telp@Rt66.com
technical writer/editor Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Telperion Productions http://www.rt66.com/~telp/
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