Thanks for the information. I only thought of breaking up the mother rizome in order to move the baby plants further apart but that sounds like it would not be a good choice. While these are our first purchases I grew up in a yard with iris mostly white and purples but my aunt suported herself and her family by raising cockatos growing plants and a friend of hers had her entire backyard in Iris beds with concrete borders probably 6 or more beds that ran almost the full width of her yard. She raised and sold but I do not know if she developed new plants She gave my mom several two toned plants in the 50's but I do not think any survided. Once one of my mom's plants had a seed pod and she came by several times and then took it so she may have been interested in growing new plants but it would have had to have been small scale. while we started with TB iris we were thinking of dwarf for edges so we will take a wait and see with the litle plants. These rizomes looked like they might be culls from a larger grower since the ebay add ran for months and there were lots of 100 iris offered so he must have had a ready supply of these items from somewhere.

We are in North Texas DFW area and summers are "Hot and dry after the Fourth of July" as the saying goes lots of 100 plus days and little rain until September. We wanted to convert to a low maintance low water yard after several summers of water use reduction, so we are doing away with the lawns and planting low water need plants various flowering sage, lantana, crepe myrtle, vitex and Iris. Here afternoon shade is an essencial to reduce watering needs and keep plants alive.

I will be installing a just below the surface french drain system to reuse bath and wash water along with reusing rainfall from the roof. Seemed like a reasonable idea and it is inexpensive and for the short term would have no storage capability. I have reused washing machine water durin the 70's drought and it had no bad effects I used a bio-degradable detergent and watered the trees with it. I have a self limiting input for the rainfall reuse and the system can easily be turned off during the rainy season to avoid flooding the beds.

Bill

Thanks for the information. I only thought of breaking up the mother rizome in order to move the baby plants further apart but that sounds like it would not be a good choice. While these are our first purchases I grew up in a yard with iris mostly white and purples but my aunt suported herself and her family by raising cockatos growing plants and a friend of hers had her entire backyard in Iris beds with concrete borders probably 6 or more beds that ran almost the full width of her yard. She raised and sold but I do not know if she developed new plants She gave my mom several two toned plants in the 50's but I do not think any survided. Once one of my mom's plants had a seed pod and she came by several times and then took it so she may have been interested in growing new plants but it would have had to have been small scale. while we started with TB iris we were thinking of dwarf for edges so we will take a wait and see with the litle plants. These rizomes looked like they might be culls from a larger grower since the ebay add ran for months and there were lots of 100 iris offered so he must have had a ready supply of these items from somewhere.

We are in North Texas DFW area and summers are "Hot and dry after the Fourth of July" as the saying goes lots of 100 plus days and little rain until September. We wanted to convert to a low maintance low water yard after several summers of water use reduction, so we are doing away with the lawns and planting low water need plants various flowering sage, lantana, crepe myrtle, vitex and Iris. Here afternoon shade is an essencial to reduce watering needs and keep plants alive.

I will be installing a just below the surface french drain system to reuse bath and wash water along with reusing rainfall from the roof. Seemed like a reasonable idea and it is inexpensive and for the short term would have no storage capability. I have reused washing machine water durin the 70's drought and it had no bad effects I used a bio-degradable detergent and watered the trees with it. I have a self limiting input for the rainfall reuse and the system can easily be turned off during the rainy season to avoid flooding the beds.

Bill

Thanks for the information. I only thought of breaking up the mother rizome in order to move the baby plants further apart but that sounds like it would not be a good choice. While these are our first purchases I grew up in a yard with iris mostly white and purples but my aunt suported herself and her family by raising cockatos growing plants and a friend of hers had her entire backyard in Iris beds with concrete borders probably 6 or more beds that ran almost the full width of her yard. She raised and sold but I do not know if she developed new plants She gave my mom several two toned plants in the 50's but I do not think any survided. Once one of my mom's plants had a seed pod and she came by several times and then took it so she may have been interested in growing new plants but it would have had to have been small scale. while we started with TB iris we were thinking of dwarf for edges so we will take a wait and see with the litle plants. These rizomes looked like they might be culls from a larger grower since the ebay add ran for months and there were lots of 100 iris offered so he must have had a ready supply of these items from somewhere.

We are in North Texas DFW area and summers are "Hot and dry after the Fourth of July" as the saying goes lots of 100 plus days and little rain until September. We wanted to convert to a low maintance low water yard after several summers of water use reduction, so we are doing away with the lawns and planting low water need plants various flowering sage, lantana, crepe myrtle, vitex and Iris. Here afternoon shade is an essencial to reduce watering needs and keep plants alive.

I will be installing a just below the surface french drain system to reuse bath and wash water along with reusing rainfall from the roof. Seemed like a reasonable idea and it is inexpensive and for the short term would have no storage capability. I have reused washing machine water durin the 70's drought and it had no bad effects I used a bio-degradable detergent and watered the trees with it. I have a self limiting input for the rainfall reuse and the system can easily be turned off during the rainy season to avoid flooding the beds.

Bill

I've read that rhizomes can be sliced into segments, about 1 inch long, and that it is a good way to increase stock, however I've not tried it and don't know how long it takes to get a bloom.

It sounds to me like you may have received a variety of bearded classes as well as colors. The mother with six little increases all crowded together sounds like a miniature or standard dwarf bearded. That's a very common growth pattern for the dwarfs and nothing to worry about. Just let them grow that way. Dwarfs grow into tight, round clumps quite quickly, so they do generally require division more frequently than the taller medians and talls.

While your increases are still small, leave them attached to the mother rzs. The mothers will continue to feed them while they mature, at which point they'll be much easier and successfully divided away from the mother.

Just leave them all the way they are for now. Next year you can reassess and divide the ones that have matured into full grown plants, if you so desire. Note, though, that your best bloom will occur on clumps that have been left in place with no root disturbance for 2-3 yrs. If you dig and divide every year, you'll never be likely to enjoy full blooming clumps.

Happy irising,

Laurie