*HAPPY DANCE!!*

It's mushing! Can't call it rain, too wet for snow.. it's a mush storm!!!! Yay! Very wet snow! Will definitely help with the fire dangers! Not expected to stay long, but it's the first significant amount of moisture since January.. and this is wet stuff! Yay!

*happy mush-storm dance*

update: 10:41am. Well, that was fun while it lasted. got about 2" of mush, which, as wet as this was, will be close to an inch of rain. Better than nothing! Going into the 70s this weekend... maybe more mush before then?

*sneeze* battling a cold. bleh. *cough cough* LOL! :D

YYYAAAA Toni so glad for you hope you get some more snow/rain still waiting for our snow to melt should be around 45 by the week end YYYAAA for me ;0)
Gloria

Thank heavens for small blessings.

mush storm helped immensely. one of my forsythias blossomed! But, then we got a microscopic ice storm last night and froze out the flowers. This was a new forsythia I put in the ground last year. My older forsythia is swelling, but not opening just yet... maybe this weekend?

I love forsythia. At least for the first three or five years before it decides to send out expansion arms and relocate to the other side of the yard.

As a child I had a "secret cave" under a huge forsythia - wonderful plant when there's room for it! Alas, it does not grow around here.

PPal - why not?

I guess it is too hot for it. Or else it does not get cold enough in the winter. (?)

ah, probably not cold enough in the winter. When I was a kid, we lived in Las Cruces, NM, which is a sister city of El Paso, TX, which is a sister city of Juarez, MX, and my mom had irises in the front yard. Never once blossomed. Never in 8 years.

I can't imagine living where the iris don't bloom. Here, fortunately, that is not a problem.

I really don't think there should be a problem with growing tall bearded, intermediate bearded and border bearded irises in Las Cruces, and I think there are people in the iris forums who live there (although I really can't think of anyone right now, of course!). But irises are pretty finicky -- and the little dwarf SDB irises need some freezing nights in the winter in order to bloom the following spring. And the beardless ones are totally different and I really don't know much about them because those I can't grow here. But the bearded iris, other than the SDB's, really should grow there. We get over 100 degrees for at least a month each summer and 95+ for the rest of the summer and through September, and you need to bury the rhizome most of the way into the dirt and half-day shade is really good for them -- and fertilizer is the big thing. After you've grown irises for a year or two in the ground they will have sucked up absolutely all the nutrients in the soil around them, and then you need to fertilize in the fall and early spring or they'll never bloom again -- but with a low nitrogen fertilizer. I get Pennington 6-10-10 for less than $3/box and it really works! Oh yes, and you need to split up the clumps every 3-5 years because they will stop blooming if you don't. Many times people end up with large clumps with fantastic leaves -- and no flowers, and that can also be from over-fertilizing. As I said, iris are pretty finicky. But oh what beauties you get in the spring!



Sorry -- I know this is the Roses Cubit, but I couldn't resist. All these are tall bearded irises growing in Bakersfield in the spring.

Betty, I greatly appreciate the info. And I love the photos.

There's a spot at the end of my driveway where iris grow and bloom every year without my help. Last year I tried to divide the iris, but could not get the shovel to go into the ground more than about half an inch. So I decided to just leave them alone. Not far away, every other plant I have put there has died including drought tolerant sedums, grasses, wildflowers, and agaves. But iris that I bought on sale for $2.00 a piece seem to be thriving a year later.

Since this is a rose forum, I need to point out that there are lots of spots on my property where there are giant granite boulders six inches below the surface. No rose could grow there. And even though official iris catalogues tell you that you need eighteen inches of good soil, it seems to me that iris thrive in these locations, even on the poorest soil. So ... there is a way in which iris are complementary to roses in their cultural requirements. That's good, because they are usually competitors for attention in the flowering category. Smaller flowered roses such as certain polyanthas can really complement iris, though.

Beautiful on any forum!

Yes, I always figure I need 6"-8" depth for irises -- mine never seem to send roots any further down. And I have very silty soil that does not hold water for any length of time. In fact, in the summer I now put mulch around my irises -- a big no-no for irises, but when I put it down I try to keep it 2" away from the actual rhizomes, and then when it spreads out there is hardly anything touching them. But that helps keep them green through our hot temperatures in the summer, and then I remove the mulch in the fall.

It sounds like you got a great deal on those irises and they grow and bloom where nothing else would. Congrats!

I barely scratch the surface when I plant iris and then cover the rhizomes with the scratching/rock. Works just fine here