CULT: what to do with unplanted rhizomes?

Hi all,

I'm enjoying iris-talk immensely, especially those dreamlike bloom reports from Oz.  Certainly has put Louisiana irises on the list of things to try!  Belated, heartfelt thanks to John Jones for the mailings that alerted me to the "new place"; I was subscribed to IRIS-L for much of its life, but had had it set to nomail for some months before its demise and would have missed the train completely otherwise.

Last spring was a terrific one for the iris here, Siberians and bearded.  A bunch of historic beardeds that bloomed for the first time and thrilled me to pieces.  One sent several years ago by an online friend I had completely forgotten about -- for the first few seasons it put up such insignificant foliage that I barely noticed it, and naturally no bloomstalks.  The flower looks exactly like the picture in Kohlein's book that he calls I. variegata v. pontica.  Is that an accepted name?  Others, ordered from Clarence Mahan's last listing, were I. flavescens, EDINA, PERFECTION, QUAKER LADY, COL. CANDELOT, KAREN (the 1924 one), I. albicans, NUEE D'ORAGE, and MADY CARRIERE.  

The bloom season made me realize how much I prefer the delicate stalks and blooms of the diploids, so I got fired up and ordered a number of MTBs from Terry Varner at Ohio Gardens. Then came the second half of the summer -- unrelenting heat and drought.  The hard reality that much of the work has to happen at the hottest time of the year is what's kept me from getting too involved with bearded iris before.  I'm just useless in the heat.  I got the digging and dividing done, but I never got the rhizomes replanted, or the new ones in the ground.  Kept waiting for the usual cool-down and ground-softening rains of September, and this year they never happened.  Now that I've finally gotten the beds ready, it's too late to plant.

Next season I'm definitely going to do the potting routine (probably without shaving the roots, but may experiment with half & half).  But for now, what should I do with the rhizomes I have?  They're still firm and in good shape.  I have no real indoor growing space. I've been longing for a cold frame anyway, would that be an option?  Would it be better to keep the rhizomes somewhere cool and dry and plant them in spring?  

I'm in zone 6b (avg. winter low of -5F), in the western foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.  We get a lot of freezing and thawing, very undependable snow cover, and have gone below -10F  twice in the last five years.  Last winter, in which we never got below 0F, was highly unusual. We've just had killing frosts, can expect lovely daytime weather and cold nights for the next few weeks, and after that anything can happen.

Would really appreciate any advice, on the list or privately.

Nell Lancaster    (nlancaster@rockbridge.net or 75500.2521@compuserve.com)
Lexington, VA, U.S.  USDA zone 6b

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