Re: Distorted and stunted iris
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Distorted and stunted iris
  • From: C* C* <i*@aim.com>
  • Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 07:14:12 -0400 (EDT)
Thanks for this information.
I suspect that this was too much bleach or soaking for too long. Too much of a good thing.
A wash with bleach normally wouldn't cause this problem. Also after bleach treatment plant should be rinsed with water. 

Chuck  Chapman

-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Baxley <baxleyeugene@yahoo.com>
To: iris <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Tue, May 15, 2012 4:26 pm
Subject: [iris] Distorted and stunted iris
In 2010 I purchased some iris from a garden. Some of the iris grew almost normal, but most of them grew abnormal in some way. I searched and researched to discover what I had done to cause stunting and distortion of those iris. I pruchased more iris in 2011 from the same garden.and I got the same results. In searching for an answer I discovered that washing iris rhizomes in bleach solution can cause stunting and distortion of iris growth. Some of them die. The seller admitted to useing a bleach wash. It seems that the bleach prevents the rhizome from taking up adequate nutrition until it is worked out of the iris. If the iris lives through the first year it will apparently recover and grow normally, but you have all the anxiety and agravation of the situation.
It is sickening to me to see newly purchased iris rhizomes growing with a fan about one inch high that should be six or eight inches high. Then the next year grow a fan or two which is about six to eight inches long that is stunted and grows curved over to one side or the other of the rhizome so far that the end of the longest blade touches the ground. The curved leaves have prominent 
ridges on them sometimes.

If new purchases do this, it is not your fault!!!
Ask the seller if he/she used a bleach wash on the iris before shipping.

Eugene Baxley

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