I've been able to start cleaning some iris beds and have Preen I bought last year but didn't use. Iris are starting to green up. Shall I apply it now or wait a month? What do you do?

My husband refuses to use it. Couldn't do it right now with the snow anyway.

I do it as soon as I can. A lot of weed seed germinate in very cool weather.Then I re-treat in late May. ...Arlyn

Yup -- if I'd had one more hour of free time today, that is the job I would have done. I'm gonna try for tomorrow......................

Just as soon as the snow's gone, it's my first job! Then as soon as the ice goes out, I'.ve got to pole a raft upstream to Wisconsin!...Arlyn

No reason you can't throw it right out on the snow if it's melting. It needs wet to work anyway.

Wish your husband would agree to use it, Lucy, it saves a lot of work, and I fell it's quite harmless.

I use Preen right after I weed. You don't want the weeds to get started. The Preen doesn't kill any weeds that are growing, only works to stop new weeds from sprouting. So it makes most sence to me to apply it as soon as the iris bed is weeded.

Our main broblem is grasses in the iris beds.

Ornamec works great on the grasses. I use it here for the bermuda and it works wonders!

Lori, I looked it up on line, and it's supposed to kill quack grass too, which is a major pain here. Do you know if it will Kill Iris? It says it's not effective on broad leaf plants. If it doesn't hurt the iris, It's would be worth its weight in gold, lol

tom, I may be wrong, but aren't iris monocots( a grass)? If so, chem control of grassy weeds will be really hard to do....Arlyn

Well, is sounds too good to be true, so I'm guessing it would kill the irises too.

I'm afraid it would. I don't use any weed "killers" in my beds, just pre-emergents.I tried to "wipe' some Roundup on quackgrass in a bed once, and it turned the grass yellow after 1 application, and I believe a 2nd would have killed it, but it also seemed to bother the iris that were next to it( fumes, I guess). So I went back to just digging it out!...Arlyn

I used a grass killer on my Iris beds last year. It wasn't as successful with the grass as I would have liked -- maybe needed another application. But it didn't seem to bother the Irises at all. The product is out in the garage, so can't tell you what it was right now -- I'll try to remember to look later today.

A lot of people use Ornamec in the iris garden with good success. I have a bottle, and have been afraid to try it.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you here! No, it will not kill your irises. I have used it many times with no problems. Use as directed and mix according to label and you will be fine. It is a great product that I refuse to live without!

Ornamec, Lori?

Ornamec, yes.

Thanks!