ChapmanIris.com
Title
Chuck Chapman Iris
Description
The garden is located just north east of Guelph Ontario in Canada. Agricultural zone is 5b by Canadian rating or about 4b by USA rating. We have 11 acres of land and about four are planted in iris with about half of this being seedlings We seem to be the most northern commercial iris growers and hybridizers of bearded iris. The soil is sandy loam and full of rocks. Jamie and George (11 year
old twins) have a regular job of collecting these rocks and although they complain, they do enjoy the extra spending money. I don't think their job will ever run out. A lot of these rocks are limestone so the soil is naturally buffered and is 7.0 ph. I have tried growing Louisiana and Japanese iris but I couldn't keep any soil at the ph they preferred without a lot of extra work because of this natural buffering. There is inconsistent snow cover here and every couple of years there is a heavy winter loss of plants. Usually we have a dozen times each winter when the temperature goes below -36C ( about -30F) and occasionally to -40 ( same F & C). Sometimes this occurs when there is no snow cover. Some cultivars that don't do well here will survive in the Canadian prairies where the winters are colder but there is good snow cover. The springs are long, cold, wet and cloudy and often there is a problem with soft rot. Spring is a busy time of year replanting winter heaved plants, trying to catch spring rot before it spreads and also treating for iris borer before too much damage is done. This involves burning off of the old foliage, spraying and a follow up inspection and hand catching of borers that escaped the previous treatments.
These various climate challenges sometimes result in plants being not available for shipping even when fall inventory indicated a good supply. I'm trying several new procedures to try and remedy this problem. It seems that I need two or three plantings of each cultivar to ensure that
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