I was searching the net for what eats Iris rhizomes and found this thread.
It seems from reading no one is really sure what mammals actually eats them other than vole and moles.
Well if that is all then I either have rock climbing mole or a vole that is over a foot long and can bend at the waist.
Now ten years ago I had one fancy one disappear the night I planted it; I blamed that on a five finger discount but then they were where no one would really know I planted them.
Well a couple of weeks ago, my replants of old ones, very old, I dug them up to get rid of quack grass, seemed to be doing OK.
I did not see them every day, I am gone for a time but when I got back I saw four lying on the ground and as dry as the roots were they had been there for awhile.
I transplanted them into a pot six inches across and eight inches high and set them on a rock sixteen inches off the ground and sixteen by thirty-six surface size with a few onions I had left over.
I left them as I had to leave again.
I came back two days later to find one set of leaves on the ground three feet away and the iris gone from the pot with the onions still there.
The potting soil was a bit disturbed but the pot was still upright no dirt was on the rock.
I have squirrels big enough to not knock the pot over if they were in there.
I do not know if I have raccoons, but do they eat iris as what ever it was picked them out of the pot and carried them away.
They were nothing special as when I replanted I did so willy-nilly and these just happened to be the ones lying on the ground.
From reading the net this one thing there are no solid answers.
