My iris did not produce flowers this year

Well, I live out in a desert and I make sure that my iris get two things:

1. lots of water, they need at lest a full ac ft a year.

1. Good feeding, in the spring time I use my alfafa tea I make to pour around them. During the summer time I dust the ground with a thin film of steer manuer and in fall I mix in the alfafa into the soil near their roots for feeding.

Spring time I get blooms.

They are too crowded. Divide them now. The proper way to deal with iris is to divide 1/3 of them each year. When divided, they take one year to recover much of the time. With this technique, you have about 50% blooming each year. If you don't divide them, and you can see they are crowded, next year they will bloom even less.

The rhizomes need to be divided every three years and never plant them too deeply. The crown of the rhizome should be above the soil line.

I live >

Some of my iris bloomed, and some did not. They are taking longer to recover from dividing than usual. (I divided them in the fall of 2004.) From the growth of foliage, I expect they will bloom quite well this coming spring.

On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 14:21:22 -0800 in , "Starlord" graced the world with this thought:

just how many irises are you growing? Certainly that's a bit much for the three in my flowerbed.

Last count last year was 300+ and I've been building a new bed that's close to 150 ft long in sections and I've got ones I've got to spilt up that'll put me over 400. All in the High Mojave Desert.

I divide mine every 2 to 3 years, depending on how big the clump of rhizomes is, only I do it as soon as they quit blooming. Then some of the replanted ones will bloom the following year, but usually it will take the second year after transplanting.

You can dig up the entire clump, divide it, and lay the rhizomes on top of the ground. Then I sweep some loose dirt along the edges of the rhizomes and water them. I water mine with a soaker hose.

I usually just use a shovel and cut the center of the clump in half. Dig up one side and get rid of it by giving it away or transplanting it. The other half of the clump will usually bloom the following year, if I didn't disturb it too much while removing the other half. If your clump is too big, you will have to remove more than half.

Dwayne

I have two or maybe three varieties. One clumps, (Looks like a plain old flag lily or bearded iris, but will tolerate wet feet.) and one variety the rhizome divides and produces two new one's and the rhizome that bloomed becomes bug fodder. These work best to divide every year and bloom early every spring. The third variety blooms more than once a year and someone else dug them for me last and I just found two of them last month when they bloomed. I've never had a year without a few blooms.

Regards,

Hal