Re: Moving I. sibirica in the fall--don't.

In a message dated 8/14/02 1:30:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ellengalla@yahoo.com writes:

<< I have better luck moving in the late summer up here
 after bloom. I have decided (!) that we don't have a
 spring like the rest of the world. If we are lucky, we
 get part of May that can be considered spring-like.
 Then we hop into summer which is great since is when
 we get June bloom. >>

For Ellen in that even lesser warm climate, this may make sense.  If I dug 
and divided just now, I and the plants would keel over from the heat.

I have never had any success with fall dvision or planting, in fact have had 
such poor success with those fall divisions that I have pulled them out and 
composted them believing they would never recover. They can sit as small 
divisions for three or more years, never recovering.

Possibly if you watered intensively and offered the plants some semi-shade it 
might work a bit better.  Also very possibly, the gardener is about as worn 
out as the plants by now.

We seem to have a very variable spring, spring can be quite nice to no spring 
at all but you  CAN WORK in the cold and rain with Siberian irises.  Then we 
move into summer where for the last ten years, rainfall has changed and there 
can be as this year many days over 90 degrees.  If I were a plant, I would 
certainly try to defend myself against all this variability. The Siberian 
grows best in the cool months. When fall arrives they are washed out in 
appearance and have spent July and August water starved unless you are 
sprinkler person.  Therefore leaving them alone in fall just seems to me to 
be kindness plus the experience of destroying fall divided plants.  I have 
concluded that the earliest in the spring that I can get a shovel into the 
ground is when to do it and if you lose a season of bloom, you do.

We have had enough rain here this summer until the past two weeks when it is 
amazing what can happen with two weeks of drought and ninety degree 
temperatures.  Somehow it does not seem fair of Mother Nature to give people 
who deal with below zero winters, early September frosts, a devastating late 
May freeze this year - to give us this ninety degree stuff - not fair. 

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4 

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