Many years ago - goodness, it has to be at least a dozen years ago, when I first started gardening - I bought some Royal Knight irises from somewhere like Spring Hill. Well, they were dwarf, which I didn't realize, and honestly, I believe they were mislabeled to boot. However, they have been one of the mainstays of my garden. They are the first iris to bloom, they multiply wonderfully (have given many away at swaps), are a beautiful deep dark purple - and have been known to bloom in November! Funny, I had forgotten about them, but you'd think with the warm temps and fairly nice weather we've been having, that they'd bloom now. Maybe I need to go take a closer look. The flower I have fun with is fall-blooming crocus. I plant them out near the street and people are always stopping and scratching their heads, lol. By the way, my Immortality have never bloomed in November, sadly. My calendulas, some scabiosas, and a few roses are still going strong, though. :) Dee

I have heavy clay soil. When we made a bed for the irises, we amended with builder's sand to allow for better drainage and lots of compost. The irises are doing just fine. Before that they were in pure clay and doing their best but now I think they are doing better. I find they don't need lots of water but enough to help them form healthy rhizomes. If you have been there five years, they are probably over crowded, the reason you are getting few flowers.

I don,t know about siberian iris because this will be my first year with any( I got them last fall) but with other iris each rhizome makes a bloom so thats how they are divided you seperate the rhizome and give each room to multiply. The large rhizome in the center probly won,t bloom again so when the clump becomes crowded that one is usually removed to make more room for the rhysomes it produced.

OK...AC ratings are only for laminates. That means vinyl doesn't even need to join the race. The same "concept" (toughness of the finish) for vinyl is the wear layer (ie. 20mil). For vinyl floors, that's what you work with for "toughness" and scratch resistance. https://www.hoskinghardwood.com/Department/Laminate-Floors/Laminate-Floor-AC-Ratings.aspx?dId=9&pageId=67 So....that means the toughest of the tough is the laminate (re: your options). The AC3 rating is considered good enough for HEAVY residential traffic (that's not very common) or MODERATE commercial traffic (think exclusive women's clothing retailer....not Walmart). That's pretty darn good. But Uh-oh. You want it to go in the kitchen. That laminate is out for that space. Oops. Now we start playing with the vinyl options: the 20mil wear layer is BETTER than 12mil. And 40mil is better than 20mil. So the TOUGHNESS you need for the AREAS you need it in have been established. Next question: Do you need the "heat stability"? Is your home open to sunlight through windows? That means, do you have "pools of sunlight" hitting any part of your floor during ANYTIME of the day? (most people have to deal with this...but not all) If so, you will need to know HOW HOT those spots GET! The regular vinyls (as in AduraMax) have upper limits of 85F. Oooh nooo. A pool of sunlight sitting on a floor (with older windows or low UV blocking windows) can heat past 100F. In a situation like that AduraMax will have MASSIVE issues. At that point, the Apex is a better option. So....at this point in your investigations, it is time to get out a thermometer (indoor/outdoor at Home Depot = $15) and start finding those sunny spots in your home and MEASURING the temperatures (and writing them down to keep track of it all). To me, this is the ACID TEST that will determine which vinyl to work with - toughness of finish be damned.