What Happens When I Don't Take My Own Advice...

Here's a dirty little secret: very often, the very people who give information about a certain topic don't necessarily follow their own advice.

Case in point: me, and my irises.

One of the basic, never-fail, must-do tasks of maintaining an organic garden is to clean up plant debris. This is important during the growing season, but possibly even more important after plants die back, struck by frost. The reason fall cleanup is so important is that many of those nasty insect and disease problems that drive us nuts during the garden season actually start in the fall, overwinter in garden debris, and launch a full-scale attack the following growing season.

One of these nasties is the iris borer, my latest (and possibly most disgusting looking) garden nemesis. It's been a busy year for me--my youngest daughter was born in early May, just as the gardening season was kicking off. My irises bloomed, but I had noticed their foliage looking a little shabby. "Must look into that," I'd mutter to myself as I went about the normal planting, weeding, and general tending of the rest of the garden.

Well, this past weekend, we dug up the irises to make room for another raised bed vegetable garden. And we discovered wriggling, pinkish-white iris borers. They had tunneled their way into several rhizomes in one area of the bed. As we hunted them down, and snipped them in half with garden pruners (hey, even organic gardeners can be vicious, in their own way!) I was annoyed with myself. The damage we saw, and the irises we lost, was the direct result of my forgetfulness the previous autumn. I had never gotten around to cleaning the iris bed out the way I usually do, and, as a result, the dead foliage sat there all winter and into the spring, harboring an enemy that would eventually result in the demise of more than a few of my irises.

If you are noticing telltale signs of borer damage on your irises, such as tunneling through the foliage, premature dieback of the tips of foliage, or rot at the base of the plant, it may be time to dig the rhizomes up and take a look. Get those buggers before they pupate, becoming the moths that will lay yet more eggs on your irises this fall. For more about how to recognize and control iris borers, check out my latest article.

And, for goodness sake---don't forget to do your fall cleanup! You'll save yourself headaches (and heartaches) next season if you do.