thanks leslie, i've been meaning to separate. everytime i've tried, it seems to bloom. that's a 30 gal. pot.
i feed the irises the same thing, in the ground or pot, and 'cozy cotton' has less room than 'capt.' but, it puts up tall bloom stalks, anyway. they're all fed osmocote, a tropical plant food, sometimes monophosphate, organic rose food, sulfur (applied 1-2x a yr. after i do a soil ph check), dr. iron once a yr. or when the leaves look peaky and light green, and miracle grow. it all depends what i have on hand. i usually start feeding six weeks before growing season, then at 1/2 strength @ 2-3 wk. intervals depending on the weather.
the following excerpt is from a fellow iris gardener in my area. though the article is not in its entirety, i've copied and pasted the pertinent parts:
quote: "For every rhizome or clump of rhizomes planted in my Ramona iris garden, I amend the soil with about four gallons of well-aged chicken manure compost (i.e. about a 5 gallon pot),1/2 cup of Gro-Power Flower 'n' bloom and one cup of Ada Perry's Magic Rose mix. I thoroughly work these ingredients into the iris hole with a shovel, taking three or four minutes to shake and turn the soil over and over and over. Usually in mid-March and mid-October I'll fertilize every rhizome with about a tablespoon of the Gro-Power Flower 'n' bloom. And that's it for fertilizer..
Shake and stir these ingredients together in a five gallon paint bucket:
1 three pound bag of Miracle Gro organic bone meal (from Home Depot),
1 three pound bag of Miracle Gro organic blood meal (from Home Depot),
½ cup of garden Epsom salts,
½ cup of granular garden sulfur,
1 cup of ironite and
8 cups of gypsum.
Over the years of frantically searching for the elusive index soil amendment recipe card, I have learned to write this recipe on the inside lid of the 5 gallon bucket so it is easy to find when it is time to replenish the bucket.
More purchasing info:
• Pennington Epsom salts comes in 7 pound bag from Home Depot
• Classic stone gypsum in 40 pound bag from Home Depot
• Ironite in 20 pound bag from Home Depot
• Growmore granular soil sulfur in 4 pound box from Walter Andersen
My irises love this mix. They are growing like crazy. "end quote.
my friend lives in a totally different environment than i do. though we live in the same county, she lives about an hour and a half east of me. she gets 10-20 degrees hotter and colder than i do, and on rare occasions it does snow there. according to alexa, the last time it snowed in s.d. county was, dec.27, 2019.
but being closer to the coast, about 1 mi. from the pacific ocean, we rarely get hot for too long, and if we have 30 degree nights it does not extend more than 7 consecutive nights.
today, it's sunny and 70 deg. , which is fairly typical for a january afternoon.
