The problems of iris growers in the mid-west are rather different from those in states located nearer the oceans. The main problems are high winds and sun-scald. Mid-westerners should buy the irises that the catalogs describe as “heavy-textured,” that can resist the strong winds. And to prevent sun-scald of the roots, the rhizomes must be completely covered with a thin layer of soil.

Many people of the mid-west don’t realize this, and proceed to plant the irises according to directions given by nurseries that may even be located – right on the seacoast, where the situation is very different. The rhizomes must also be re-covered before each summer begins, if they have climbed up to the surface of the ground. Sun-scald often results in a severe case of root-rot, that is usually fatal to irises.

In the mid-west, apart from sun-scald, there is almost no danger at all from the infectious iris-disease known as root-rot. It does not live long enough in dry soil to invade the iris-patch effectively. Root-rot is characterized by a very offensive odor that extends for several feet around the plant when the disease is exposed. Because of this offensive odor, there is no difficulty in distinguishing between root-rot and ordinary dry rot, that happens to every healthy iris as it becomes too old to grow any more.

There have been no more than two or three cases of real root-rot among the irises in our garden since I adopted irises for my hobby, fifteen or more years ago. This is largely due to our dry climate. But it is also partly due to the fact that we learned not to water them as often as we watered the other flowers in the garden. However, in our climate we find that if they are not given a good soaking about once a week, their growth stops, and this causes them to rot. It is even more so if they are trying to grow in hard-packed soil. This weekly watering should never be done in the latter part of the day, always in the morning. We save the evening for enjoying our work as we walk around from the lighting of our solar garden lights which come on automatically.

We also learned to watch very carefully all new iris rhizomes that were sent to us each year from coastal states. Once in a while one of them came to us infected with root-rot, and it required a year or two for the infection to break out to the surface.

This is no reflection whatever on coastal nurseries. Such infections are usually impossible for anyone to detect at the start. Even the nursery cannot detect it, when the infection is in the center of the rhizome, but every honest nursery will replace the iris. We buy almost all our irises from a coastal nursery. They are often of very superior quality, because of having been grown in the very same conditions of moisture that produced root-rot in one or two of them. I recommend coastal nurseries, if their irises are more or less free of that infection.

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