I will look at them more closely tomorrow during the day. Hopefully I can get more weeding done also.
I am not used to the old mother rhizome rotting. I doesn't happen in the rest of the garden. And maybe I just didn't get close enough to the iris but I didn't notice any smell at all.
Betty, that is what I will do. Clean them up once I get it all weeded. I suspect the intense heat and the fact that I had to water or it rained didn't help. The weeds kept me from looking too carefully.
I only fed them in the spring and I do always use a low nitrogen fertilizer. In fact I remember using the tomato fertilizer this spring. Low nitrogen as they don't want crazy plant growth with no fruit set. In fact it is made for high fruit yeild withput incouraging lots of leaf growth. Seemed good for iris.
