in my limited experience with iris since the 1970's i understood bloom out to be what guissepej described, where every rhizome, single, or in a clump produced a stalk without sending out increases. then the single rhizome or clump just shriveled and died.
i did not experience this phenomena in my garden in northern california, but have since i've moved to socal (in san diego county). (i may have mentioned 7 or 8 have expired this way.). in norcal, i had clay soil , but very rich in nutrients. in socal i have extremely sandy soil, with very little humus.
what i am not sure of is, what might be the contributing factor to the iris demise. i have planted my iris rhizomes very shallow, as i was taught. (bury the roots and half of the depth of the rhizome with half of it showing above the ground. but, some of the irises planted in pots have "sunk" and i've had to pull them up because i had noticed signs of rot starting. )
many of my tb's and ib's live in permanent pots because of ground space issues. for some, it will be their 3 yr. and will definitely have to repot with 2/3 new soil (1/2 cactus mix & 1/2 potting soil) i have 1 of 40 in pots that may experience bloom out after this season, but i won't know for sure until summer. i didn't want to dig it to check for increases this early in the season as it just tried to bloom a few days ago in the rain. i chopped the stem, covered it with more soil, and i am feeding it a dilute solution of 'thrive' (a vitamin b root stimulant). i thought i might experiment on this one potted plant, to see if anything might help?
the bloomouts happened early on with my inexperience of southern california gardening. the rhizomes were were planted directly into that sandy ground soil upon receipt. the iris bloomed their 1st year, and promply suffered bloom out and died.
subsequently, i started planting the newly purchased rhizomes into pots then transfered into the ground, this has helped considerably.
we will have to see what happens to my experiment in the pot?
thank you william and guissepej. william for starting this thread and guissepej for your contribution and explanation.
it may just boil down to mother nature? why some plants thrive and why others die? i'd like to see if my experimentation yields any results?
comments?
