birdieb wrote:

I am new to this group so I want to thank you for letting me in. It is
very interesting to read your answers to plant problems. Quite a few
ingenious solutions have surfaced. I live in Southern France (100 kms
South from Grenoble) in the valley. Nice to meet you, everyone! Happy
New Year! And a big thank you for your help so far.

Needless to say I am a newbie to gardening too. To enter the subject, I

bought 2 days ago 5 Iris rhyzomes in a soil that went completely dry 3
hours after watering - in tiny pots, 4 cm in diameter. Most of them had

leaves. Even after replanting in turf they don't seem to do much
better: the leaves keep going yellow. I make sure they don't have too
much water. Can I do anythign else to help them?

They are maybe 10 cm away from the first heater pipe, it is not hot
though since they are in the window. Any ideas?

Rhizome iris are quite hardy, to 10°F (-12°C) or even lower. Thus,
they can be planted outdoors. Where I live (rarely reaching even
32°F (0°C)), they are planted with the top of the rhizome at the
surface of the soil or slightly above the soil. Where the soil
freezes, they might have to be planted deeper; they might also have
to have some winter protection. (In the Royal Botanical Garden in
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, they cover the iris beds with cut
branches of various conifers.)

Putting outdoor plants by a window indoors sometimes gives them too
much sun. The light is okay, but the heat of the sun is too much.
My indoor plants are at a north window. Since my house is not
quite square on the compass, the window gets some morning sun in
the summer. Then, I cover the window with shade cloth.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/