I was quite disappointed this spring when almost none of my half a dozen or so iris clumps bloomed. It turned out that one of the clumps had worms when I bought it and it infected everyone else. I used biological weapon referred to as nematodes – tiny things that feast on iris borers that attacked my plant. It looked like the thing worked because I have a nice iris blooming in the fall. Yay!
Umm… aren’t nematodes worms? So you fought off the worm infection by adding more worms? I’m so confused.
Yes, but these are microscopic worms!!! The whole point is that these worms do not eat plants while their dinner does. It is kind of like aphids and ladybugs.
That being said, it will be interesting to see if I have a nematode problem next season.
Correction – nematodes are only microscopic when you buy them from the store (and any other time when they happen to be very young). They eventually grow to about a half a cm in length. Thanks to Chris for correcting me. And people laugh when I say that his head is filled with various knowledge!