On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 19:27:18 -0400, Pelvis Popcan
wrote:


I'm new to Iris. I can see they send up stalks separate from the
leaves. I'm assuming that after the blooms have faded, the whole stalk
should be cut off down to the base, to get it out of sight.

Am I correct? Please tell me if I'm wrong!!

That's right, cut them down. And in when the leaves die back in the
fall, I leave them on the plant until spring to protect the rhizomes
(roots). I remove the old leaves when the new ones start coming up.
This goes for the daylilies, too.


Now to the daylilies... they also send up stems with their blooms
separate from the leaves. Should I also be doing the same with the
daylilies in cutting the whole stem off after the blooms have fallen
off? I noticed that after the blooms fall off, many of the stems have
a green fleshy pod on the ends that kind of looks like a small pickle.
It's hard. Here's a pic of one:


Are those seed pods?
YES
It's not going to harm the plant to cut off the
stems with those pods, is it?
NO, you'll be letting the plant store the energy for next year that
would otherwise go to growing seeds.