Now is the time to assess the merit of which irises are doing really well and which are not. I would like to know which ones you have that are not doing well and how you measure this. Do you replace an iris that you liked but was struggling? Do you give an iris a set amount of time to strut its stuff? If you decide that an iris is not performing to your standards do you toss it or move it to an out of the way area and just let it carry on or slowly diminish.

I am dealing with whether to replace irises that were damaged in a spring storm. Half of a huge sweet gum tree came down in a bed of over 20 irises. Some will come back and some will not. Replacing some is a no-brainer, as they say, but a few of the others were not thriving before the damage occurred.

Sometimes an iris will not perform well, or at all, in my area due to the heat but gets raves in cooler areas of the country.

I would be interested to know what you expect from an iris and how you handle making choices about irises that are not blooming and increasing up to your standards.

I think that is a good question. I have only one at the moment that I am giving up on, and that is Apollodorus. Yes, it has a pretty bloom, but over half of the buds never opened, just dried up. Then those that did open broke off, so I had to bring them inside to sit in a vase. That was the year it bloomed. Since then it has not bloomed, and not really increased. I feel the heat is too much for it with it's later bloom time. I have seriously been thinking of asking if any ATP member who lives further north would like it. So if anyone is game, let me know!

That is a good thing to do with an iris needing another climate to thrive in.

Leslie, it is beautiful and I will take it and try it here if you are giving up. If it does well and blooms I will take lots of pics for you.

I really haven't had any this year that I think need to go. The only one I considered a real dud was Hi. I have waited on it to bloom for 3 years and it finally did and this is what it looked like.

Lori, considering the winter we went through do you think you will give it another year? If not do you plan to relegate it to an inconspicuous place if you have room and just let it do its own thing or will it see the compost heap?

I think since we had such harsh conditions I will give it one more year in it's current location. If it is not really pretty next year it goes to the heap!