Expert: Long Island Gardener - 3/5/2007

Question
I recently purchased several iris bulbs over the internet on EBAY, and when I received them they looked very dry, so am wondering if these will come back or not?  Also, when I notified the seller, she indicated that she cleaned the iris' with 10% bleach and water to dry them out in order to ship them out, which I've never before heard of.  Does this dry them out totally, to the point that they won't come back?  I've planted them, but not too hopeful of the outcome.  Please advise on the bleach and water, and your opinion on whether or not they are salvagable.  Thank you very much.  

Answer
Soaking Iris in a dilute water-bleach solution is standard procedure, sometimes just as a disinfectant precaution, to destroy fungus and prevent bacterial rotting.  It is not done to dry them out -- at least, I've never heard of that, but there's a first time for everything.  Trouble is, by the time you document any damage to these, your eBay complaint period is up.

"Dried out" can mean a lot of things.  They may be perfectly good if they are just dormant.   If they have been out of the ground for a season -- or longer, even worse -- they MAY be kaput.  Some "dormant" plants can stay that way for years.  But Iris -- that's not on that short list.

She did not bleach them to dry them out.  That's totally ... um... baloney.  To put it nicely.

Even if I had them right here on my desk, I don't know if I could tell if they are borderline.  You know how eBay is.  It could be anyone.  They could be telling the truth.  Or they could be lieing. She may have just bought these herself.  Or found them in the garbage behind a nursery.  Or stolen them.  Or divided them and actually is selling viable plants -- but that line about drying them to ship, B-A-L-O-N-E-Y.  So from that point on, who knows what direction these will go?

I wish I could tell you something more optimistic.  Thing is, "maybe" is the operative word here because there is so much that you don't know.

Give it a shot.  Leave awful feedback if they don't.  Don't worry about her retaliating.  Honest people in the end rise to the top.  There's the eBay fraud dept too -- I don't know if that's an option here or even if you want to bother on that level.

With these bulbs sold for so cheap on the legit market, though, taking a risk w/ eBay... I think it's better to support your internet garden retailer.  Brett & Becky's bulbs has been a victim of fraud, that's how they lost their Daffodil business, selling to a partner that wrote a dishonest contract and taking advantage of perfectly decent human beings.  They just opened the next business and now I hope they have recovered.  Not the cheapest in town.  But for a fair price, you won't get more honest vendors or more experienced garden advice. Not even from me!

Plant those things and see how it goes.  And don't buy anything from her again.  Like that old gardener's saying: Baloney by any other name is still Baloney.