Terry Coombs wrote:
I'm new here , but have been posting at rec.gardens.edible for some time
now . Rather than pester those folks , I thought I'd ask here .

heya!


When is a good time to rake the leaves and stuff back off the Iris and
similar bulb plants ? We live in a clearing out in the woods , and they get
covered with leaves in the fall . Right now we have daffodils budding and
starting to bloom , but those will bloom thru snow . I'm looking for a
generalization , like after danger of hard freeze or something like that .
I'm just not sure how hardy these are , and this has been a really strange
winter (North central Arkansas , ~1500 ft elevation on the Ozark Plateau) .

irises don't like being smothered and will withstand
our winters, so i don't think you have any worries down
there. i'm assuming you are talking about the rhyzome
or bulb kinds and not the more finicky swampy kinds. i
clean up the debris either in the late fall or in the
early spring. the iris borers eggs are often overwintered
in the debris nearby.

daffodils also are very hardy for us if not planted
in too low a place, but they also don't do as well
planted in narrow raised beds either. otherwise we
have them growing up through all sorts of things. if
you want them to multiply faster then they do better
without competition, but they'll survive with it as
long as you don't take off the green leaves when they're
growing. the nice thing about daffodils is that the
animals will mostly leave them alone. the rest of the
bulbs here get eaten by everything. i always plant
extra...


songbird