Re: CULT:Pot culture yet again

In a message dated 9/4/05 10:09:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gschubert@earthlink.net writes:

<< I'm at the point that I want to get my act together, find out what 
reblooms 
 and what doesn't, and adjust my population accordingly.  It is going to be a 
BIG heartbreak to part with some really pretty oncers, but their only 
contribution would be as a potential parent.  Is it worthwhile use of pots to keep 
pretty oncers who are good parents, or should I only collect rebloomers who have 
the genetic potential, even if it is in sunny California? >>

Hi, George.

I don't know you, so if it sounds like I am reading to you from the primer or 
otherwise underestimating your smarts, please understand I am just rattling 
on here in very general terms, trying to be helpful. Anyway, if the patterns of 
this list hold, someone will speak up shortly to contradict what I've said, 
which should give you two sides of the story. 

First, I think you should hold onto the real pretty oncers since they are 
real pretty, which is what irises are for; pretty is their real contribution. 
Surround yourself with beauty of all sorts, never loose sight of its importance 
in the haze of theory, and be a more visually sensitive hybridizer. Rebloom may 
interest a lot of people, including yourself, but it is not the only 
interesting goal in hybridizing, as recent discussions here have made clear. 

Second, I think you should plan on planting everything that will grow in the 
ground into the ground. I think you will find that pots are not a lower 
maintenance solution, indeed they present a whole range of tedious problems uniquely 
their own. I've potted irises with success, and I consider pots only a short 
term or last ditch effort solution, not a valid alternate cultural venue, as 
'twere. Furthermore, aesthetically, a pot ghetto is likely to be the absolute 
pits, and you appear to be craving order. 

I think you need to design new beds for ready access towards maximum ease of 
maintenance and ease of crossing. Long narrow beds which contain two rows of 
staggered plants with plenty of room between them to hoe and spray easily 
without having to stand in the beds seems useful to me. Use a pre-emergent in the 
spring-- another brand name is Surflan-- and check into selective post-emergent 
herbicides which can be sprayed over the established irises. Check the list 
Archives for discussions of this--use Poast or Vantage for search terms--- but 
also bear in mind the date of some of that information. Your county agent can 
probably fill you in on the latest on that subject. 

By the second year, assuming you don't have all sorts of seeds blowing in 
constantly, you should have beaten a lot of the volunteer vegetation into 
submission and you should be able to top-dress the soil with a layer--thin--of pine 
bark nuggets kept well away from the plants themselves, which will also help. 
So will keeping turf well back from the beds. Just rake the nuggets to the side 
when it is time to reset the plants, and redistribute them later. I am not 
talking mulch here, just a dressing.

For maintenance, I really like two tools I found a couple of years ago. They 
were Martha at KMart and were dirt cheap and decent quality so I figured I'd 
try them out.  I'm the sort that likes to have a few good tools which fit my 
hand just right and are of proven utility rather than a litter of marginal 
hardware. Exasperating tools impede your ability to enter into the Tao of garden 
maintenance. Anyway, I got a long handled hoe with a small triangular head, apex 
facing out, and a springy wire rake the business end of which is only about 
eight inches wide. It is light-weight, but strong, and you can't beat it for 
getting in places and around things to pull out debris. Next to my outside pair 
of regular Fiskars scissors it is my favorite garden tool. These implements 
are classics, if not ordinary fare, and if KMart does not still have them they 
will be available from someone who carries a wide range of tools.

Cordially,

Anner Whitehead
Richmond VA USA UDSA Zone 7

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