HYB:CULT:water and seedlings

In a message dated 11/30/2006 4:32:56 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
janclarx@hotmail.com writes:

.  <<Now if I watered my seedlings faithfully with the soaker hose here, I  
would be kissing most of them goodbye too!>>
 
Jan, 
 
I'm zone 6 and the years vary almost as much as colors on the irises!   Our 
summers are both hot and humid.  This summer there were many days in  the upper 
90's.  KY is extremely humid and we often have cloud cover with  the humidity 
and heat.  We also have heavy fog and dew.  
 
With our weather conditions, my seedlings need to be able to take a  decent 
amount of rain.  And the alternating dry spell.  Small  seedlings just can't 
tolerate the extremes a larger, more established rhizome  can handle.  My 
experience indicate that most full grown rhizomes can  tolerate dry or drought 
conditions better than they can tolerate the wet  conditions.  
 
In this post I was talking about seedling that sprouted this past  spring.  
They sprout in late March or early April here and I try to get  them in the 
ground by the end of May (end of TB season).  When I accomplish  this goal, I 
usually get a high percent of first year bloom.  
 
There were several hundred seedlings and I work alone.  I  wouldn't have time 
to fill that many pots.  The trick is to get the roots  established before 
the sun's rays become bleaching hot.  Traditionally, I  water them until they 
have established root systems.  
 
We had a hot spell not long after these were planted and the ground became  
excessively dry for a couple of weeks.  A DEEP soak is required to  encourage 
roots.  Ordinarily, I soak every 10 days to two week IF  needed.  With the 
weather so dry, and the seedlings so young, I was  watering any time the surface 
looked powdery dry across the bed, but only very  early in the morning and a 
deep soak when I did water.  I've read that  water on the foliage when the temps 
pass 90 degrees can almost boil the little  ones, and create leaf spot on the 
survivors.  
 
Many of the losses came later in the season, once most were established and  
doing well.  By this time, I'd turned them over to mother nature.  
 
This procedure has worked in the two previous seasons.  In  addition, only 
some crosses were effected in this manner.  Other crosses,  sprinkled throughout 
the bed did well.  To me, this speaks more to specific  crosses.  
 
When working with pots, it's good to water from the bottom up when  possible. 
 Shallow fill pails etc. with water and sit the pots IN the pails  until the 
water soaks to the top of the soil.  It insures the roots are  watered well 
without getting the tops wet.  It works best with mum  transplants etc., but 
I've also seen it work with irises.  
 
If things go bad, I may pot 50-100 of the new batch (2816 seed) in pots  this 
spring.  Hope not.  


 
________________________________________________________
Betty W.  in South-central KY Zone 6 ---
Bridge In Time Iris Garden@website:
Where  the seeds are in the pots once again! 
_www.thegardensite.com/irises/bridgeintime/_ (http://www.thegardensite.com
/irises/bridgeintime/) 
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