Thanks for the warning, Rob.

Late to the party. Andrea - lovely lovely pictures! Clothos web is stunning. I broke down and got it last year and it bloomed this year for weeks.

Interesting about the irrigation. Their soil obviously dries out quicker than in the south. I don't know of Horizon's. Wonder if anywhere here carries such a fertilizer mix.

Make sure you get Dark Storm in the database!!!

Lestv said: [...]
Make sure you get Dark Storm in the database!!!

AndreaD said:I thought a weekend trip to Superstition Gardens at peak bloom would be fun. So off we went on Friday. Superstiton Gardens are located in the Sierra foothills on the highway to Yosemite Valley National Park. (Yosemite is about 50 miles further.) It was a beautiful drive once we rose up from the Central Valley. Due to the record rains Northern California has gotten this year, the hillsides were covered with deep green grass, wildflowers, and fresh-looking oak trees. The typical California landscape is dry grass and dusty trees, so to see such greenery was an unusual pleasure. We didn't get to the gardens until
4 pm on Friday, due to traffic issues in the Central Valley. It didn't really matter, since it was very windy and we planned to return on Saturday. Seeing the flowers backlit by the sun was lovely.

So we spent the night in Mariposa (gateway to Yosemite and crowded with tourists and went back to Superstition Gardens on Saturday.
The remarkable feature of Superstition Gardens to me was how beautifully the iris are grown. They displayed several of the iris I grow myself, but their blooms are much bigger, the stems look stronger, and the leaves are unmarked by leaf spot. We talked to Rick about their cultivation methods. Some of things they do people like us, who live in the burbs, can't, but I thought what he had to say about
fertilizing and irrigation were interesting and worth passing along. I have heard such various kinds of fertilizer recommended, 6-10--10 or 10-10-10 or no nitrogen and super high phosphate fertilizer, etc. He recommended a 6-20-10 fertilizer with traces of iron, sulfur, and zinc applied in the fall, six weeks before bloom, and RIGHT after blooming. I had picked up the notion of waiting to fertilize a month after bloom and no fertilization in the fall. So that was interesting. For irrigation, they use lines with holes punched every 8 inches. They run the water for four hours at a time, a
really deep watering, much deeper and longer then we presently do.

Andrea, did Rick and Roger say how much fertilizer they put down per iris? I was wondering if they sprinkle it around each iris or apply maybe a teaspoon per iris and scratch it into the dirt. I've not been good about fertilizing.

Iciris,
I bought a bag of the 6-20-10 fertilizer from Superstition Gardens while I was there. The
instructions that Rick stapled to the bag say "Sprinkle a small amount around each established iris plant, try to keep the fertilizer away from the rhizome itself." "A small amount" is kind of vague. I've been told at my iris society to scratch in a tablespoon around each iris plant. I usually scratch a handful of fertilizer around each plant, especially if it is a clump, and that seems to work. A tablespoon doesn't seem like enough.

Wonderful pictures, Andrea.

Mariposa Iris is right there in Mariposa, too.

Nice to hear that everything is looking green there. I was last up that way Fall of 2015, coming back from an East Sierra hiking trip. It was distressing seeing so many brown or dead trees at that time.

Thank you Andrea.

They've also had great rain this season, maybe too much. In the hotter season though they also have those irrigation canals that are ran for a few hours. I hope I get some monsters from them!!!

If they are monsters in a drought I am sure they won't be getting smaller for you Gabe!