Help! The immediate horror of iris boarers

Hi there,

My first post of the year since I'm always afraid I'll post in the wrong place .also posting without glasses.

I have seen the horrors of the soil where I planted my bearded iris full of bright red hideous ....I assume...iris boarers.

Long story short....I've been gardening for over twenty years and I'm pretty good. I always read of the iris boarer and was always careful,to plant my rhizomes high, partly exposed, never let them get sogging, pushed on the rhizome time to time to see if they were squishy .

They weren't squishy but this year they didn't do much of anything and the leaves turned a brown streaky color. This has been a tough year personally and so iw sang doing my research. A friend just told me that she read about a problem with bearded iris this summer in Indiana or thought the country' but she forgot what it was,

Anyway I was just digging in the garden and my iris felt squishy and were smelly. I started to dig up one and there were these hidebound looking things inside. They make grubs look handsome.

I dug up the bearded iris , digging thru the ground where there were at least four per hole. I had stopped looking and was just screaming.

My question.....what do I do with the places in the garden where I dug up the bearded iris. My husband poured "some liquid pesticide" in the holes......but I don't know. Are they all,over the garden? The rest if the plants are doing swell. What do I do to the ground and how,do I never see another one Iin my life

Thanks

Judy

Learn the life cycle of this pest, and hand pick (remove infested leaves) at the first sign, before they bore their way into the rhizome.
If they are just getting into the rhizome, and it is still healthy you can kill the borers and save the rhizome.
Look for signs of damage on all the irises, and treat all that show any hint of the problem. The caterpillars will mature and lay eggs soon, which is next years' crop of borers. Interrupt their life cycle.

Yes, I understand vaguely their life cycle. And I'm pretty to very good about removing leaves. That, like deadheading and weed control, are a constant.

My questions are this:
Ya know how you're not supposed to plant glads in the place every year - because of thrips? Is this true for bearded iris, even if I correct (raise up further) their planting area?

Can they affect other plants? My husband poured some bug kill for borers in borer area but I hate to keep doing that.

You say, look for signs. I had been all summer. Mushy bulb, rotten smell, streaked leaves, lack of growth? Some had one or two of those symptoms except smell. I'd stick my finger in bulb and sniffed .
But you're saying the first sign of any of these- yank them? How do I know when they've reached rhizome- by the time of year or just increased mushiness?

How do you treat for I .b?

Last question: friend of mine remembered reading recently about some scourge that has affected bearded iris all over country. Can't remember anything more. Ring a bell?

In advance thanks.