In my 50+ years of gardening, l have never had a failure like this year. Last year I dug up a huge, overgrown bed of showy TB iris after they'd finished blooming. I did not improve the soil at all, but just removed weeds. I replanted only the biggest rhizomes that had not previously bloomed and gave them enough space to spread for the future. Out of approximately 150 rhizomes, I had one bloom! I was expecting a fabulous show and I'm really disappointed that all the work of last year somehow resulted in nothing to show for it.

A friend said he'd heard that you shouldn't transplant iris in the spring, but I've done it in the past. In fact, I once transplanted a clump in full bloom and didn't lose a flower!