Re: To take off or not to take off!
- To: i*@rt66.com
- Subject: Re: To take off or not to take off!
- From: I*@aol.com
- Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 07:23:44 -0400
In a message dated 96-09-13 21:44:14 EDT, you write:
>
>My question tonight is this: I have read in several spots that it is best
to
>keep iris beds as "clean" as possible before winter. This means taking off
>allthe fans once they turn brown. Is this the right thing to do or is it
best
>to
>just let them fall over after freezing and lay there all winter? I bought
>several bales of straw today to put over the bed just before the snow flys.
>How thick of a layer should it be to give the best protection?
Hi Kim... I'm going to give your questions a shot - although you'll get
plenty of good advice from folks more astute that me.
In the northeast, we keep the iris beds clean primarily as a first line of
defense against the dreaded irisborer! That moth lays eggs on dying/dead
iris foliage (so the legend goes), so the debris is removed in the hope that
the eggs are removed as well. You should wait till around T-giving to cut
down your foliage...and then don't cut it off completely, but leave a perky
little 4 or 5 inches sculpted to an arrow shape (picture this < as the
top of your fan). The theroy on this is that you want to leave it as long as
it's green... but then cut it off to fend off disease and the d.i.b. (dreaded
irisborer).
As for mulching... we mulch to keep the ground from going through the
freeze-thaw cycle which will dump your irises on top of the ground, where you
will find them in the spring - quite dead, thank you. So... keeping that
notion in mind, we don't mulch until after it freezes. Another problem you
will find (as I did), is that if you mulch too early on your beardless iris,
critters will burrow around and eat the roots! In the spring you'll find
your labels connected by tunnels and no green anywhere.
And that's the word from Kathy Guest in the Buffalo, NY burbs
