Danfordiae

Have you had this one long Brian.Is it the one that the bulbs break up into smaller bits and reduces flowering?

Phil
that's the one I am going to try putting the bulbs deep in one my inside troughs after flowering ,they have two chances.

Phil you can give them a good feed of tomorite and then let the foliage die down. When it has just about gone you empty out the pot and remove the new bulbils replanting the original bulbs to flower the following year and grow on the babies for another three years after which they should start flowering. The alternative suggestion I was given was to leave them to do their own thing but buy fresh bulbs in each year for four years by which time the first lot will have recovered enough to flower.

Sheila
good idea the feed after flowering but as a lot of people will tell you that when you tip the pot out you are very lucky if there are any bulbs to replant it will be almost all bulbils ,yes I am sure they will grow on and become larger but pretty tedious when you consider the price of a new lot of bulbs.
Some have success in the open ground but have no experience of that as my ground is to heavy and wet they just rot.

Sheila-If I remember to,I give all my spring bulbs in pots a touch of granulated,high potash feed after flowering.

Bjs could you leave them in the pot maybe under the trees and forget about them until they build up again. Kit Strange from Kew was our speaker yesterday and she suggested putting all the rice in a pot close together and covered in grit and leaving them to grow in to flowering bulb size. She was not specifically talking about Iris at that point. She felt there was an advantage in growing them close together as they seem to grow better if they are in close proximity to their neighbours. Phil I have heard of the granular high potash feed but not sure what to buy. Tomato food seems to be the current, favoured fertiliser for everything. I also read that it is good to feed them the granular feed as they emerge in Spring taking care not to get it on the foliage as it can rot it. I think we might be getting lots of quite cheap bargain price bulbs at the moment but it might not always be so. I wonder if you feel that.

Sheila
for years I used Vitax Q4 in my potting mix and plants and bulbs seemed to need little else in a years growth that was always a powder, then some years back all I could buy was it as granules which were not the same in a potting mix since then I have used lots of different ones including Tomorite but not that impressed. used the various Chempak ones for a while but they get messy in storage
Just looked up Q4 it appears they do a powder form now.!

Thank you.

Tomato food of any kind should be ideal.Anything with high potash

Thank you pcw