My two stalks of "July Sunshine" are blooming now. They start off nicely, but the Japanese beetles get after it way too fast and wreck the bloom.

Misawa77 said:i have only acquired 67 cultivars so far this season! I am the picture of restraint!

The box from Sherry (Henhouse) brings my "total" collection to 738 cultivars.

That's astounding, considering it's all being done on a *city lot*.

That 738 number is a bit misleading as I have not subtracted the losses or the deletes which are 50+.

I only have 1/3 of an acre and 1/3 of that has the house on it. It really is squeezed in!

It DOES call for some "creative planting", doesn't it !!

very crowded in my yard!

If we go by percentages, my iris count was increased by 425%. Ha! Got you all beat!

I do have at least two more boxes that will be winging their way to me this month. However, I will not be close at all to your OUTLANDISH OMG percentage.

What was your starting number? Like 5?

Here are a couple of pictures of "July Sunshine"




They are not the greatest as I took them just before the Sun set. I took others, but they were messed up due to the Japanese Beatle "infestation" that was going on. They looked ratty

Is this a case of whoever dies with the most irises wins?

Greg -- they're a lot better than the Irises that I don't have blooming!!

Curious -- do you have Japanese Beetle traps?

Jan -- I think so............

No, no Japanese beetle traps. Just the bugs. Not huge numbers, but there a lot on the blooms.

The traps seem to attract lots of them to come to your space. Better to buy them as gifts for your non gardening friends and neighbors a mile or so away. It will attract them away from you!

I experienced the exact same thing, Tom -- which was what I was going to share with Greg if he had them.

When we had JB traps, we dealt with thousands of the da*ned things. Since we stopped using the traps, the JB population has decreased every year. This year we had very few. THANKFULLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

How was the percentage determined Celia?
It appears my iris count has gotten quite high. I need a couple of weeks of really cool weather to create another garden.
Hi, I am an irisholic and I require more garden.

Leslie, I had 12 iris at the start of the year. I now have 52. I divided 52 by 12 and got 4.33333... I rounded down to 425%!

I haven't added the new ones to my database. I'm thinking it must be close to 300....from 4, three years ago.

I believe that would be 7500%? Someone tell me if my math is 'irrational.'

It's not the *math* that's irrational ! I, personally, don't keep track of the number of iris, anymore (except when asked !), because it's easier to just count how many beds I have ! And even THAT is getting hard to keep up with !

I don't want to talk about it..................

Looking at my plant list, and not counting some of Dee's box that haven't been entered, it appears I have 465 iris of various kinds. I am sure I am up over 150 from last year.