Re: CULT: Stopping Roundup

Interesting Story Dana,

 I will keep an eye on the front row to see if I lose
any of them. I do know they took a direct hit. I have
noticed that the older varieties and the paler
irises...whites, light yellows, light purples, light
blues, pink etc... are more deformed than the bi
colored ones. It's strange my clump of Clear Morning
Sky is blooming like something from outer space  while
the clump of American Sweetheart right next to it is
perfect. This is happening in several different areas
of the bed. The solid color ones are opening normally
but are really washed out in color or not ruffled. The
look more like plastic than the real thing. I only
hope that I don't lose a lot of them.





--- Dana Brown <ddbro@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> 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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