Oh Teresa, I have not heard that one before. My first order has been in the ground about 3 weeks and they are growing. The second order has been in the ground about 2 weeks and they are holding their own I guess. They are not dead anyway. I know my mother-in-law planted some many years ago in her zone 4 garden and when she passed on (before I took an interest in irises) I dug most of them out. I thought I got them all but lo and behold there were some blooming the following summer so I have just left them. I figured if they were that hardy in zone 4 and the deer won't touch them, I need to just leave them alone.

Did you mix them in with other perennials or have them alone? I have mine in mixed beds. I love having early Spring blooms from them and then dls later in the summer.

The front of the bed has some spring bulbs like snowdrops and miniature iris and the back of the bed has daylilies. The iris are planted in the middle. I have some room behind the daylilies that I haven't decided what to plant yet. Maybe I'll put glads there because they bloom a little later. I thought too that maybe I will just put some annuals in between them when they are done blooming.

The glads would be tall enough to show over the DL's. I'd think that would be nice. Many of my beds are mixed as well, but a few are just Irises.

I noticed a week ago someone had a big collection of glads blooming. They would be nice for late color. I have even had big white marigolds between mine for late color. The little orange ones are cute in the Fall.

I have a few glads in my backyard that come up every year. If you plant them deep enough they will winter over and not freeze out.

How deeply? 6 inches maybe? Mom has some old fashioned orange that have been in the same spot over 30 yrs!

I only buy 'hardy' glads and they grow well and multiply. I put them behind the irises but they grow so tall I have to stake them. I have them in great reds and golden yellow and pink. I also have some that are red with a white outline called Atom.

I bet that looks great, when they are all blooming!

At least 6" deep and these were regular glads.

I love mixing lots of other perennials among Irises too, but have to really control my inclination to over crowd my Irises with other things. I've just spent the last couple of days digging creeping perennials out from among Iris clumps- and that was a real pain. Once they've formed clumps, it's easy to just mulch right up to the clump, but for newly planted rhizomes I find the mounding method sound. Then you can mulch all around the mound. I pot my new rhizomes when I receive them, and then start planting them out about 3 weeks later (when I see roots growing from the drainage holes). When I planted them, I left the upper inch of soil above ground to create a little mound, and mulched right up to it.

Do you use leaf mulch or a hardwood, Neal?

We use pine needles for newly planted bearded iris. Remove in early spring.

I'm using wood mulch that the road department dropped off from mulching brush from the roadsides. I let it age for at least a year before using. That stockpile is about gone now, not looking forward to having to buy mulch again.

Cindy, Please take a look at my plant list for trades. I would love Glads that will grow in Maine.

Wow Linnea. You sure have a lot of irises. I only have one color of glad and it is a medium pink.

Most of my irises are new this year, so I won't have extras for a bit. I have plenty of Fabian, Honorible, I. pallida and Blue Moon Siberians. Us cold weather folks gotta stick together on the glads. Many of them don't winter well.

The glads are kind of weedy here... hard to keep contained.. I just have two, that were both here when I bought the place.. I keep them because my daughter likes to come over and pick them. There are worse reasons to keep a plant.... and they are pretty.

Sherry, my girls are not gardener but love the blooms and bouquets. I still have hope that when they age they will be more inclined to grow plants.

This may be a silly question, but are you talking about gladiola's?