I am thinking of potting some iris for sale next spring. I have some odds and ends of extra ones that I don't want to toss out, so I think I might try potting them, and selling them next spring when people come to see the bloom. I haven't done that before, and need some advice.

1. Do I need to dig the pots into the ground, or will they be OK above ground, but grouped together?

2. Should I uses potting mix or regular soil?

3. How big a pot should I use for a TB? It would be nice if they would get blooms on them.

4. Anyone in zone 5 or colder ever done this?

Thanks, all responces appreciated!

I have kept iris over winter here in my Utah 5b garden. I do not bury the pots but do not keep them where they will heat up during the day and freeze at night. Keep them on a eastern or northern exposure. A mulch of loose leaves or pine straw might help. I use potting soil as my clay based soil here turns to concrete in a pot. I use the black plastic 1 gallon pots that I have saved for years. Good luck......make a little money to buy more iris.......

I use a slightly different system...Pot size is about the same as Paul's, I guess...about 8" dia., and I use a "mix" of about 2/3 potting soil, and 1/3 topsoil. I bury the pots to a depth of the soil level inside the pots...just row them out in the veggie garden,,,,and they all seem to do fine............Arlyn

I always have potted Iris over winter, but what I do in Texas would have no relevance to Wisconsin conditions. Be interested in what you choose to do and how it turns out in Spring.

I have several in pots from last summer that I haven't planted yet. Procrastinator here. If you want to go to the effort of sinking the pots it would probably help.

All good suggestions, I should have enough to experiment with some in the ground and some out. If we have another cold winter like last year they might be better off in ground. I had a couple seedlings I left in pots last winter, and lost them.

It also depends on the type of iris and the particular cultivar. My MDB's in pots froze into big balls of ice. I was told they needed a period of winter to thrive so I put them northside of the house, in the shade and on top of crow ridge. The drop off does not get sun in the winter as it is steep. I had to beat the ice off of them this spring and they all bloomed. If last winter was any indication, irises in pots can survive a pretty cold winter. Don't know about sub 0 temps. I could not survive that so what can a poor little iris be expected to do. Sinking the pots even half way will help a great deal. I am hearing that we are going to have a cold winter..... maybe that means we will not.

LOL!! Likely!

We had several days of minus 22 degrees last winter. That is unusual for us, 10 below is more commen as a low temp here.

Hope this winter isn't as cold as the last one. The whole months of January and February were sub zero temps with a ton of snow to go with it. Some of the irises that were along the driveway with no snow cover to insulate them were dead to the ground with no green leaves on left on them...after the thaw.... but they did survive.

I had some that didn't have snow cover during some of that cold snap, and some died all together, and othes lived but didn't bloom. Of course rabbits ate all of the green they could get. This year I'm planning on putting up a bit of a snow fence there to hold in the snow.

I would sink the pots and put them on a South side, near the house.

On the south side they will warm-up on a sunny day and then freeze again at night. Wide temperature swings do more harm than constant cold......just MHO

I agree with Paul, I'd just plant them out "in the open". Might even be a good idea to plant them in the lee of a chunk of snowfence.....let them spend the winter under a drift....Arlyn

Hmmm. My Southside iris are my most prolific and nary a rotten spot to be found.

Iris in the ground on the south side are different than iris in pots on the south side...............especially black pots. I have a large bed on the south side of my house that do well and bloom sooner but iris in pots on the south side would freeze and thaw as the weather fluctuates. This goes for all plants overwintered in pots. This has been my experience and has been successful for me. A friends grows many hosta in pots and he handles them the same way........

I think that any pots here would go in our seed trench.

The seedlings I had die last year in pots were on the South side of the house. I think I'll dig a trench in the veggie garden and bury them this fall. Now I just have to get busy and get them dug and potted. I don't have a lot of extra pots, as I need some for new seedlings. I think I'll experiment with a few. Some in trenches and some above ground. I have enough of them so if I loose a few it won't be the end of the world.

Good luck with all of them, Tom.

I have a question. If they're already planted, why not leave them alone?