🎶 "I'm a-rottin' in the rain, gettin' squishy and I feel the pain"


Just got done (gave up) in the the iris beds. With all the rain we have been getting (and snow/melt/snow/melt) I discovered that about 80 percent of my rhizomes have rot. I noticed that most of them started rotting at the main rhizome, then spread to the new offshoots (?). I completely lost Sweeter Than Wine, among others (but I really really wanted that one!). American Master seems to have held up the best, as well as some of the (as yet) unidentifiable ones that survived the rabbit invasion earlier this year. Who'd've thought that the only iris that would be happy in the middle of the desert would be my Louisianas ?
Soooooo thinking of switching to Daylillies!

sorry to hear Darcy!

Darcy, I have Sweeter Than Wine for you, well if mine survive the rains. Please don't give up on the Iris!

I've lost a lot of irises this year too, but I'll have some other ones I can share with you this year.

Darcy, what Barbara said! Don't give up, you know how unusual all that rain is for your area.

We can help replace losses and give new ones to make you happy, too. And I will send some Daylilies, too, if you want to add those to the Iris.

Here is my Iris list:
http://garden.org/lists/view/l...[Have]=on&genus=Iris&submit=Update+view

Here is my Daylily list:
http://garden.org/lists/view/l...[Have]=on&genus=Hemerocallis&submit=Update+view

You guys are all so sweet...I got off as much as I could on the bigger ones and am hoping at least some will pull through...I was hesitant to spray with bleach or Listerine solution since that would just add moisture - and we're expecting more rain tomorrow. Then I thought that a little more water can't make it much worse. Thoughts? If the main rhizome is pretty much shot will the rot continue and affect the babies or will it stop at the mother? Should I dig them up to dry out & scab over where I took the mushy stuff off or will that really confuse them? I know that orchid growers use cinnamon to kill bacteria when they replant - has anyone tried this on iris? GAH!!!!! These were supposed to be easy

@lovemyhouse...hate to admit it, but QVC had daylillies on when I got in from the garden and I just couldn't help myself BTW, Oasis Amy is holding her own so far so keep your fingers crossed!!

I'm sure others are far more qualified to answer, but on the ones where the mother rhizome was mostly rot but the increases were intact, I took a thin bladed knife and cut between the mother and the increases and then removed the mother being careful go not disturb the increases. I did this with the ones that had viable increases. But the majority of the ones I lost due to rot started under the rhizome so by the time I noticed the rot it was too late to save anything.

Hope this helps.

Blessings

Sorry for your pain, Darcy, but (as a daylily lover), I have to say that daylilies come with their own share of grief. Some of them are prone to rot, and besides leaf streak (an ubiquitious fungal foliage disease) we also have the horrid daylily rust to contend with. And to make matters worse, way too many hybridizers continue to crank out new introductions while seemingly not making even the slightest of efforts in the direction of rust resistance (instead, giving excuses about their climate ("we hardly ever see rust"), or claiming that "everyone sprays for rust anyway" (not!)). (Yeah, it's a real peeve of mine... )

(((HUGS)))

There is nothing worse than finding a rotten iris.

Thanks John - I'll get an exacto blade and finish up slicing and dicing as soon as I can get out there.

@polymerous - Hmmmmm...silk plants are looking better and better.

@djinnevada - LOL!

But where's the fun in that?

The essence of gardening (until and unless we can live in a new Garden of Eden) is working with nature (sometimes fighting against nature) to produce a beautiful and/or productive garden. Since even when we are trying hard to be at peace with nature, there are still frequent battles against weeds, diseases, sickly plants, insects, critters, poor soil, adverse weather (have I forgotten anything?), we should be bursting with (modest) pride when we achieve anything that approaches being nice and similar to our own particular (in some cases, peculiar) vision of garden beauty.

Sure, there are losses, and we go off and lick our wounds and try to make a comeback. It may be that we can't make a comeback with the same plant (or cultivar), much as we want to and beautiful as said plant (or cultivar) was, but there are so many different plants (and cultivars) out there that surely we can find something that comes close and works (well enough) for us. And if not, then maybe that's a call to action, to go about trying to generate our own plants, suited to the conditions in our own battlefields (er, gardens) and which meet our own (peculiar) vision of beauty. And while hybridizing has its own frustrations above and beyond those inherent to the rest of the garden, it too can be rewarding and even exciting, and such small successes as we achieve another source of (modest) pride.

(Yes, in case you were wondering, I've just been reviewing my daylily seedling status, and plotting my battles (er, crosses) for the coming year...)

Darcy, if you don't want to add moisture, you could use comet with bleach, just sprinkle it on.

Polymerous,
That was a mouthful, but so elegantly put! I'm grateful to pull weeds, fight bugs and plan beautiful flower beds. It's my Zen. Mowing the yard is my Zen too.

Tom,
Good to know that! I usually have to soak my iris tubers in bleach water because a borer has gotten to them. I like bugs but there is NOTHING uglier than a full sized iris borer!

You are right about that, Sally -- I think that a definition of ugly, in the dictionary, should simply show a picture of an Iris borer!

And soaking an Iris rhizome in bleach water to remove and/or kill borers is a time-honored method of dealing with them. But in the case of *simple* rot, it's usually a good idea not to add liquid of any kind to the situation -- generally, the rot is caused by moisture to begin with. So in that case, Comet does the same job without adding moisture.

Tom - Thanks for the Comet suggestion - I will try that!

Sally - I love yardwork too...When we moved here I insisted that we have a lawn - both for the dogs and for me to mow (love that smell!!). For the first 4 years I mowed a total of 9 times - the rabbits kept the lawn short! We stowed the lawnmower for another 5 years (just in case), then gave it to our daughter in California. That year the rabbits barely touched the lawn and I ended up "mowing" it with the weed whacker. go figure!

Mary Ann,
I'm going to remember about the Comet. I would never have thought that would work.

Darcy,
ROTFL over the weedwhacker! We bought one last fall. Haven't had one for years. It's now called a ''string trimmer....'' Not for me. I whack!

I also got my first self propelled mower. The ditches are where I really need it, but I'm not getting any younger and I enjoy it on the flat areas too.

So here's how the chapter ends.....most of my rhizomes that had rot started out this size or bigger... (I left the knife in so you can get an idea of the sizes)




By the time I got all the mush and rot off, they looked about like this....



(And by the time I got done "sprinkling" with Comet it looked like I'd had a snow storm!!! )
And the question of the day is how large do the increases have to be to viable? A lot of mine were about as big as my pinky nail.



(Oh, and @Phillipb2 - I was wrong...it wasn't Sweeter Than Wine it was Butterscotch Wine, but thanks for the offer! (Too much wine in the garden!)

I am a rookie, but I think as long as there are roots and the increase is green, it should be fine.