I know that I have never told people on this forum the story of the irises. When we moved here in 1999, we bought along nearly all our irises. We didn't have a huge collection, but we liked all the ones we had. At our former house, we gardened on black amended clay and the irises thrived, at least most of them. Here, we have lean, sandy soil, so a special bed was made for the irises. Alas, they did not thrive. The first couple of years, they did okay, and then we found iris borers. All the irises were dug up, dunked in bleach, dusted in sulphur and replanted in new soil. Even this didn't work, and they steadily declined. We just got tired of fooling with them, so the few that were left were "kicked to the curb"--in this case, the west fence line of our property. Several years went by, the irises produced foliage, no flowers, so we ignored them and they received no care at all, not even supplemental water from us. In 2011, we had that terrible drought and a number of large trees along the fence line died, plus other trees died in the woods on that side. This year, we were astonished with the best iris bloom we have seen since we moved here. All we can figure is the sun finally reached them enough to produce blooms. True, only the strongest have survived, but that's okay. We love the ones we have, and maybe I will move the dark purple ones over next to the yellows. They will make a beautiful picture if they bloom together. Thanks for all the kind comments.
