I tried suggesting something like that too, Larry. He's just adding 2 repetitive posts a day. A post called "Woollybear's Gallery" would be so much more useful. It would give you one place to look at all his photos and commentary. We had someone like this on another list. Really useful messages just get buried. It destroys the structure of a forum. I am trying to bump older messages up. K

If all you see is paper husks, it sounds like they died a while ago. Like any 'dead body', the longer it is dead, the harder it is to determine the cause of death. Do you know if they were alive last October? Did they look healthy and normal? If it were borer, you may not have seen them in the late spring, early summer. There may have been holes in the iris, and devastating damage that could not withstand the winter. if you are sure they were healthy in the Fall, there are other causes of winter death. An animal may have eaten the roots, or it could be winter fungal rot. They may have heaved in the freeze/thaw cycles. I always have a little winter mortality, but only a small percentage die because of the harsh conditions. Maybe 1%. The best thing you can do now, is make sure you apply some Merit in the early spring, and observe carefully. By Fall, before the rhizomes bunk in for the winter, make sure they are firm and free of holes, or mush. Then you know its not borer. Examine a few times during the winter to see if you can detect something abnormal. A healthy 'hybrinating' rhizome is hard and anchored securely in the soil. Good luck, Laetitia

Sounds like a great idea! Got to try this with plumeria seeds and other seeds too!

I took this picture of a live cicada in 2006 and still had it in my Flickr photos. Kind of ugly, really. I can understand that they would be a nuisance in mass quantities, but I love sitting outside listening to them during the normal annual molting. Vickie Wikipedia has a short video of the molting process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada