Re: planting time in short-season areas

Hello All

Thamks for the comments on Louisianas.  I want to move actively into
acquiring theses and Japanese.

The question was asked when do short season people divide?

I obviously have different growing conditions from Southerners.  I didn't
realize until now how different.  We have no dry or hot season.  So I have
divided and planted when ever I feel like it.  The best time appears to me,
for TBs, to be after the bloom period, in late July. But, on occasion, I
have transplanted and divided in the spring prior to bloom with success and
I have even, horrors, been forced to divide rhizomes, while blooming, and
they have done well.  Perhaps not as well as they wanted to, but they lived
and increased.  I have even, in July, tossed extra rhizomes on the compost
pile or in the dirt,....no lie..., and, next year they bloomed where they lay.

Here, it looks like there are two seasons to plant according to nurseries.
Many TBs are available NOW in containers.  Dried rhizomes are available in
August.  Many gardeners do much of their taking extra stock in the spring,
although with iris I wouldn't disturb the main plant now.  I would take off
starts if I wanted to.

BTW CREATIVE STITCHERY which I thought might be rotted away has put up two
little shoots.

Last frost is anytime in the summer but usually June 1.  I always plant on
May 15.  First frost is anytime during the summer but usually second week in
September, but I am blessed with living on a hill and all my cold air goes
down and kills my neighbors' garden.  My plants grew two full weeks later
last year than theirs.  Microclimatology in action.

It hit 80 degrees here.  The iris look great.  no bloom stalks yet.

Lee DeJongh  Rhinelander WI  zone 3  region 8
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