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Summary: Learn what kinds of soil work best with perennials in this free video clip about transplanting irises.
Views: 955 | Tags: gardening, planting, perennials, japaneseiris, iris, iries, plantingiris, careiris, plantiris, irises
About the Expert
Amanda Kantor Amanda Kantor is the retail manager of Five Acre Farm in Northfeild Ma. She has been working in the Garden industry for over 20 years, she is a Rutgers Cook ... read more
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Questions & AnswersThe next thing I'm going to do is provide my plant with a really good mix. I have a couple of different soils here. This first one is called hummus. This is a nice, rich loam that will provide some good organic matter for my perennials. If you have a lot of sandy soil, this is very, very good to work in. There's peat moss here, which is another lightweight mix that is also good for mending the soil. Generally, the rule of thumb is that you want one part of your existing soil, one part peat moss, one part humus with planting perennials. Also, if you have a really wet area, I like to mend my hole with a garden gypsum. Gypsum works over a slow period of time, but it will help loosen and aerate the soil and break down those heavy clay particles, which I tend to have a lot of in this garden, unfortunately. Clay is not really the ideal soil medium to plant in, but if you dig a big enough hole and you back fill with good potting mix or soil mix, you should pretty good success. The other thing I like to put in my mix is phosphate. Phosphate helps stimulate root development in perennials and also will improve disease resistance. Another thing; if you have a real acid soil, we like to put pulverize lime, which is this fine powdery substance here. This will help sweeten your soil up. Generally, before adding lime you would take a soil test that will tell you what you PH is and you can amend the soil that way. Also, if it's a very sandy dry soil, we have this stuff here called terrasorb. It's a crystal that you'd only put a very small amount in your mixture. It absorbs water and it expands so that the plant can root into that. It just holds the moisture in the soil mix so it doesn't dry out. It's good to use this if you have areas that you can't get a hoes to or you might not be back to water the plant or you're going to be away and you can't take care of them. This is good stuff.
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