RE: CULT: Stopping Roundup

Hi Dana

I agree that some irises are more RoundUp tolerant than others, with the
littlies being more susceptible as well as newly transplanted. My husband
has learnt to moderate his RoundUp usage. But for several years he was
insistent that they would be OK. Finally we bought a small garden plaque
that sits at the entrance to our garden. It reads "In Loving Memory of all
the beautiful plants that have died here at the hands of my husband"



Colleen Modra
Adelaide Hills 
South Australia

www.impressiveirises.com.au


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-iris@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf Of Dana
Brown
Sent: Wednesday, 14 May 2008 1:01 AM
To: iris@hort.net
Subject: Re: [iris] CULT: Stopping Roundup

I have been following this thread with interest and wish to share my two
experiences.  This is a long story so if you're not interested hit that
delete key now <GRIN>.

Back in 1991 one of the old timers in our area was telling us that you could
spray roundup right over the iris without damage as long as it was after
bloom.  Spraying them before bloom would cause the bloom to be damaged.  It
would come back the next year just fine but, that years bloom would be bad.


We respected this gent's opinion and decided to try it.  We designated one
small area of left behind iris that we were going to dig and trash anyway
and sprayed them.  Not just once but about every month or so for most of the
season.  In the fall they looked as good as any of the others so we
concluded the ol' gent was right.

Next season, I threw out my back and couldn't get out and weed like I
should.  The weeds got ahead of me and the place was looking pretty bad.
After some discussion we decided to spray all the beds (about 600 varieties)
with roundup and knock those nasty weeds down.  The results from this
spraying were over 100 dead iris!!!  The medians and arilbreds were hardest
hit but even the TB's suffered losses.  I don't know for sure what the
difference was as I didn't dare repeat the experiment but we have guessed
that the variety we tested on was one of the tough ones and we just got
lucky.  

The second "experiment" was actually an accident.  While preparing a tank of
roundup for edging beds with, the tank blew up and covered my husband in
roundup.  We rushed him in to the house and a shower and he suffered no ill
effects.  Hours later we realized that the tank of roundup had blown up not
only on him but on an entire raised bed of arilbreds.  Not knowing enough at
the time to wash them down, we lost every arilbred in the drift area!!  

Over the years since then we have had the occasional drift problem with
roundup.  It causes a temporary setback to the plant or malforms a bloom but
because we gave up the idea of spraying over the top of the iris we have not
lost another iris to roundup.  

Just my 2 bits worth.
 
Dana Brown
ddbro@sbcglobal.net
Malevil Iris Gardens & Kennels
www.malevil-iris.com

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