Re: siberian iris

I don't cut off the foliage until after the frost.  It stays attractive for
quite a long time, and provides a nice foil or background for other shapes
and textures of plants.  And in the bed out by the road, I never do cut it;
sometimes I'll pull off the remains when I do spring cleanup. 

Siberian iris have roots below, not bulbs.  If I remember properly, bearded
iris have rhizomes, dutch and reticulata are bulbs.  Siberian are more like
other kinds of perennials, in that as the plant gets older, you'll end up
with a ring, with dead material in the middle.  Dig it up, throw out the
center, and then create 4 (or 6 or 10, depending on how badly needed the
job is!) new plants.   The larger the division, the sooner it is likely to
bloom, but I've had very small divisions rebloom the next year. 



At 11:11 AM 6/16/98 -0400, you wrote:
>   My siberian iris are long gone but the foliage is about 4 ft. tall. Is it
>o.k. to cut this down. I'm still a little new to this & know that some things
>need energy to go back into the bulbs.
>TIA for the wisdom
>Robin
>zone 6

Wyn Achenbaum
Stamford, CT, 10 miles from Long Island Sound
Zone 6

w*@ibm.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index