Bring it on, Liz! Successful surgery is success!

job well done. dr.'s lesley and liz. hope 'dragon' and 'drinks' live beautiful long lives with no more rot.

do you sterilize your tools before and after? ( question serious...not a joke 😃). what do you do? do you use alcohol and bleach? or just bleach then dust with comet? how long do you immerse tools?

I sterilize my tools as I work with a nasty rhizome. I carry a bucket of strong bleach water, and after wiping each tool thoroughly, I drop them in the bucket after I work on each one. I don't usually use my fingers for this job as they are harder to clean of bacteria after each procedure. The reason this is not a hassle for me is I have very little rot. My gardens are on gentle slopes and so I usually do not have standing water. I have had one little SDB, my avatar, Enchanted Princess, that has had rot issues both in the ground and in a pot. I have had two rhizomes just shrivel up this year. Maybe the drought caused them to be too dry and their roots were not deep enough. I am grateful that I have not experienced rot like some others have. I would find it quite disheartening. I feel really bad just reading about others problems.

thank you bonnie. i've not had much experience w/ rot. it sounds scary & i wanted to be prepared if it ever happened in my garden 😁

I sterilize my tools after and use a really sharp knife for cutting. However, I've had great success not treating the rhizomes itself with anything. The cut area is left exposed causing it to dry out nicely and the problem stops there. The times that I've lost rhizomes completely to rot it was just too extensive.

thank you liz, if ever, i will experiment both ways...treat after surgery, and w/out.

I found Ballerina Queen on top of the ground - very wizened and dry. Soaking it now, but she may be a goner.

Good luck to the Ballerina!!

My goners 2016 (all to rot)
Afternoon Delight
Cherry Smoke
Miles Ahead
Most of Carribean Cruise

I only have one root on C.C. Will one root sustain a rhizome?

Good luck with that Lindsay.. One root... maybe if the rhizome isn't too big?? I'm always so hopeful with them....

At one of our club digs this summer, I got several toes/mothers.. Most of them have sent out babies and rooted nicely, but 'Oui Madame' is dead. Positively, absolutely, undeniably, reliably dead.
In fact... it's most sincerely dead..

Are you sure about that Sherry?

Lindsay I've had a few survive with one root but others have not. Depends on the rhizome, the weather, the soil, ...and I think the Iris gods! I'm sending good healthy wishes to Carribean Cruise!

Sherry - did you have the coroner examine her to see if she was not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead?

Good suggestion, Leslie! Better make absolutely sure!!

I am sure I am not the only one who is reminded of the Monty Python 'Dead Parrot' sketch?


Found the squishy mother rhizome of 'Devil Baby' when I was weeding earlier, hope the two increases make it... one of them is iffy...

I had a very stranger 'goner' in England - one of my Blyth irises disappeared, complete with its pot and its label. Not sure I can blame either critters or rot... I keep hoping it's just gone away on a short holiday somewhere...

Oh, the parrot sketch is brilliant... as is the case with just about anything Monty Python.. But that quote came from the Wizard of Oz, just after Dorothy's house landed on the witch.

Historic 'Melody Lane' is not looking so hot either... grumble grumble....

Mika, I have had goners that included pot and label too. No four legged critters... but critters none the less. When I worked five days a week, far from home, I would leave during the darker months before daylight and arrive home after dark. I would only really see my place on the weekend. Some weekends I have found half a large shrub standing with a large hole where the other half lived. The next year I would see my flowering shrub flowering in a neighbors yard also.

Added to my already long list of the dead, or near dead....

Stop Flirting

"Bring out your dead..."

I'm not dead yet!

But, yes, I too was quoting the Wizard of Oz on the merely sincerely dead. Above is, of course, Monty Python.

I was more of a "Fawlty Towers" fan. Always had me in stitches.