Bearded Iris Bed Finished. 27 Jul 24.

 I'm more limited than I was, so things move more slowly.

Here's the completed bearded iris bed.  The features - full sun all day.  excellent drainage.  I cleaned all of the rhizomes before planting.

They have a good layer of woodchip mulch.  I know it's a truism, that bearded iris rhizomes should be bare to the sun, no mulch.  Also no weeds.  I have never been able to precent weeds, and the weeds are monsters. Then again, with bare soil around them, they always, 100% of the time, develop fungal spot and bacterial rod, don't bloom and don't thrive.  Some die.

On the other hand, the discarded rhizomes in the duck yard thrive among weeds, and they have wood chip mulch.  Also the rhizomes that I moved to the garden border.  Weeds, yes (not too many).  Mulch, yes. Fungal spot and bacterial rot, no.  Bloom, yes, quite well.

My theory is that bacterial and fungal diseases in the soil splash onto the leaves, during rainy season.  Last year I tried growing a lot of them in containers, but the same thing happened.  So this is (another) final attempt.

So there they are.   With moves and transplanting, the labels have been lost.  If they bloom, I can identify them and re-label.    Time will tell.

The ones with some new growth have been in place for a few weeks.   The new growth is free of leaf spot.  I continue to remove remaining spotted leaves, as healthy new growth replaces them.