Thanks Sean, While your area and mine are about the same temperature zone, I think you are probably more humid. I think what is going to happen is that I won't be able to remember just where all the iris are planted so some will get uncovered and some will remain covered and the results will be a highly uncontrolled experiment! Hopefully it won't be disastrous. The responses (thanks all) do make it sound like mulching is a rather iffy thing to do. Colleen -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Sean Zera Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2012 9:53 AM To: Pacific Bulb Society Subject: Re: [pbs] Iris It's probably not the greatest thing to do to bearded irises, but it doesn't seem to hurt them here and sometimes keeps them evergreen. I wouldn't ever do it except to protect adjacent plants, and you'd definitely want to remove the elm leaves in early spring before it warms up too much. Bulb-wise, I do purposely mulch xiphium hybrids to keep the winter-growing leaves from burning back, which also works on evergreen summer-growing moraeas. It will however cause junos and reticulatas to emerge too early for my climate. Sean Z Zone 6a SE Michigan