Grasshoppers! They go after the tenderest rhizomes and make a crater type hole you can put your finger tip in. They also eat the iris leaf edges I have watched them. Last year our region suffered the loss of a lot of familiar birds. As a result the grasshopper population went unchecked. I would find three or four different types of grasshoppers on one iris fan. It was a trying year. This year the birds are here and the hoppers are in check so I am battling the little black beetles that dig into the soil and eat the iris roots.
