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Newbie needs help with planting mini iris

15 years ago

Hi all!

I am new to irises. I bought just 4 MTB irises for my perrenial garden, which should be here this week sometime (ordered from Blue J Irises online). I live in NE Ohio, zone 5. The area that I am planting in is a raised flower bed on the western side of our house. It receives part sun (could be a problem if they are sun loving I guess). The bed had excellent drainage though, and I can amend the soil this week with extra humus or peat moss if needs be, as I will be pulling out our annuals to make the perrenial bed. I also have bone meal to use if need be.

I have no clue how to plant them. Do I add bone meal to the hole now, or wait till spring? Can I fertilize now or wait till spring to give them time to establish? I will be mulching the bed also, but heard that the rhizomes don't do well with mulch. I could keep the mulch away from the rhizomes. We get quite a bit of snow in the winter.

Any tips or help are greatly appreciated.

The site where I bought them never mentioned whether they are hardy in my zone (5b). The two types I bought are, Vavoom, and Butterscotch Carpet.

Thanks!

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Comment (1)

irisqueen217
15 years ago
Hi! I'll do the best I can, and I am sure someone will pick up the slack! And welcome to Irises! (By the way, I love Blue J Iris! They always have a great deal.)

Most all Bearded Iris love sun. I've seen some do alright with part sun, but they will not usually multiply as fast. 6+ hours a day in full sun do them best.

I just put in a new flower bed for a large collection of TB's and used a mix of Humus, top soil, and compost. Mostly compost and top soil though. I think I only added about 2 bags of humus to the 7 bags of the others. All the Iris already in the ground are rooting, and some are showing new growth.

To plant them, you need to dig a hole deep enough for the roots to be spread out, but so the top of the rhizomes are just above the level of the ground. Slightly out of the soil. Just make sure to get them in the ground 6 weeks before the usual first frost!

Mulching is not a good thing for Rhizomes, at least from what I read, but I've never been one to mulch much either. Since the top of the rhizomes need to bask in the sun, it would make sense that the mulch would choke them out.

As for the bone meal, I would add some now, before you plant, and mix it in a bit OR wait until fall to sprinkle about. (This part I am not 100% on, as it will be my first year to add fertilizer. Mine has bone meal in it, and the only real instructions are "do not apply directly to the rhizomes" so I am still learning the fertilizer area. )

As for watering, you want to water deeply, and not too often. The rule of thumb I use is if the top two inches of soil are dry it's time to water. I believe with first planting, you want to water twice a week for the first 2 weeks, about an inch, and then just back it off to about in inch a week, or less.

Irises are pretty hardy. If you over water, you get rot, so just try to find the happy medium. Other than that, they can thrive. The people on here are very helpful if you run into future problems too.

Hope I helped! Happy planting!
-Liz
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