Hmmm .... I've been thinking about this post for a few days, but never got around to offering a thought. I think that we may have some post hoc reasoning going on. An example of this type of reasoning might be something like this: Nancy goes to visit Jodi, and is scratched by Jodi's cat while visiting. Two days later Nancy comes down with a fever. Nancy concludes that she has 'cat scratch fever' as a result of the wound, even though there are a wide variety of other possible causes of Nancy's illness. Yellowthumb's premise simply substitutes something he didn't do for the questionable cause. How can I make this leap? If you were to read the thread about root-pruning, you would find that I describe an oft-used technique for plants that might not tolerate total bare-rooting. It describes cutting pie-shaped wedges from the root mass and leaving the remaining 1/2-2/3 of the roots and soil untouched, and to repeat this procedure on a regular basis. I often have different soils in the same pot when I'm in the process of converting a plant from nursery soil to the gritty mix, and I can almost certainly rely on the fact that I won't encounter problems. Why bring this up? I don't want folks to think they MUST remove all the old soil from the roots at the first repot into the gritty mix. How far you can/should go, varies by plant and again by the state of the plant's vitality, so you need to make a decision based on the plant's genetic vigor, its current state of vitality, AND on how well the plant tolerates rootwork. I think it's more than possible .... I think it's probable that the setback was unrelated to not removing all the old soil. Water diffuses very well in soils like the gritty mix. The Turface and granite are never water repellent (unless coated with algae). Water is absorbed readily by the Turface and adheres to the surface of the granite. Even if the bark particles were completely dry, they would soon become moist from the diffusion of what water is in the Turface and on the granite. The same is true of the old soil mass, unless it is so tightly compacted that even diffusion doesn't help. If, in fact, that is the case, it's more logical to associate the problem with compaction of the old root mass and its accompanying watering issues. It's possible that when the roots were pruned, they were pruned tight to the compacted soil. This means there would be nearly no roots in the new soil to absorb water or nutrients, so thew plant would certainly decline quickly. I don't really know what actually caused the setback of the plant, but I think it unlikely, and should be attributed to the fact, that all the old soil was not removed. Al

I tried today to dig around the plant and try to separate a clump containing the rhizome. I failed. I dug deep enough to get at the roots, pulled and yanked on a clump of leaves . The leaves just broke off at he base with no rhizome. It was like pulling on a brick wall. I even tried using a sharp spade behind a clump . It was just too hard. Do I need to use some kind of knife or tool to separate the clumps containing the rhizome.?? What am I doing wrong?? Do I need the rhizome ??

Hi suwannee75; You did nothing wrong! The reason the worms started the crawling is all the changes to them in preping to ship, shipping and fianally being released into a new environment. This is a normal response for the worms to do. Worms don't like vibrations and being taken out of the old bins with its environment as it was from birth. No they don't have much of a brain but they do have an environmental sensitivity quark that gets them to crawling when big changes happen. So get the bin ready in a place you can live with put a few (1/2 cup) of veggie scraps in the bin. I'd use the rubbermaid one. Don't clean it put any live worms left in it and order more. By the time the new order gets to you the bin will have a working microb population and the worms will start feeding. leave a small light over the bin for 2-3 days and the worms will aclimate into your bin. the worms will crawl up the sides and on the inside of the top if there is condensation on them. They like the air in that water. but when they get hungary they will go back down to eat.

Irisgal, I posted an incorrect photo of the bloom on my iris. This is the correct photo of the bloom and two more pictures of the rhizomes. The rhizome in the first photo is 15 inches long and the rhizome in the 2nd photo is about 8 inches long. The rhizome on this iris is much skinnier than those produced by my bearded and Lousiana iris and are completely different. I was given a japanese iris in a trade several years ago, but lost track of where I had transplanted it after it failed to perform in its original location. Molly