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Among the many questions asked about daylily cultivation is "How does one germinate daylily seeds?". Here is some advice from NCDC member Jonathan Poulton on March 28, 2023:
Three weeks ago, I planted my daylily seeds. They'd been stored over the winter hidden behind the lettuce in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator. For 15 years, I'd been using starter mixes that contained peat and, as a result, there were fungus gnats everywhere! It's hard to play the piano, watch the next installment of "Yellowstone", or eat dinner when you have fungus gnats disrupting your vision! So, I took the sage advice of Mary Baker, a daylily hybridizer friend from ADS Region One, who had posted on her Facebook page a seed starter mix consisting only of coir and perlite. It is fantastic! I highly recommend it! She uses Miracle-Gro Perlite (8 quart bags) and Gardener's Eco-co coir bricks. (Mix one bag of perlite with the coir obtained by letting one brick expand in just less than a gallon of lukewarm water). Germination rates were in excess of 90%, and the seedlings look really healthy. I use multicolored LED lights to promote growth. I use 72-well flats, planting seeds in 71 wells. I chop the bottom off the 72nd well to allow me to easily bottom-water through that well. Thank you, Mary!
Many of my daylilies have leaf streak, which is caused by the fungus Aureobasidium microstictum. The advice I have found is to remove the affected leaves, and then consider anti-fungal treatment.
Here are some resources that I found to be helpful:
It can be a challenge to grow daylilies in Colorado and Wyoming! We have higher elevation, poor soil, low rainfall, and low humidity.
Bellevue Beauty (Poulton, 2014)
height 32 inches (81 cm), bloom 5.25 inches (13 cm), season MLa, Dormant, Tetraploid, Fragrant, 12 buds, 2 branches, Burgundy bitone with lavender watermark and fine white edge above yellow to green throat. (Old King Cole × Barracuda Bay)
Hybridizers registering their introduction with the ADS must categorize its bloom season as E (early), M (middle) or La (late). ‘Bellevue Beauty’ blooms in the middle to late part of the bloom season (MLa).
The next attribute is foliage habit. This term refers to the winter behavior of daylily leaves. Daylilies are either dormant (DOR), semi-evergreen (SEV) or evergreen (EV). This indicates how the cultivar’s foliage passes winters in the hybridizer’s garden but is not necessarily an indication of how it will behave elsewhere under differing environmental conditions. (Note that hardiness and foliage habit are inherited separately, thus not all evergreens are tender, and not all DOR plants are hardy). I registered ‘Bellevue Beauty’ as dormant, because its shoots die back to soil level in the fall.
When I began my hobby in Iowa in 2006, I was advised by local daylily growers to purchase lilies from Northern hybridizers. I realized that the DOR, SEV and EV notations are assigned to new introductions by hybridizers according to the observed behavior in their locations, not necessarily in my location. I therefore focused primarily on their DOR and SEV cultivars that would have the best chance of surviving the challenging Iowa winters (which I don’t miss at all!).
There was another reason that I wasn’t tempted to purchase from Southern growers, namely the possibility that they might arrive in Iowa contaminated by daylily rust. Having said that, one year while vacationing in Florida, I couldn’t resist the sheer beauty of some locally created daylilies and purchased a few. I don’t know why I acted so carelessly when they arrived, but I neglected to quarantine them. Imagine my horror when a few days later I discovered rust on one of them! It took only a few days to take over my entire collection, and I was unable to have visitors to our garden that summer. Of course, the rust perished in the cold of the next Iowa winter. The scourge was gone, never to be seen again.
When we moved to Fort Collins (elevation close to 5,000 feet), my lilies adapted to local conditions, and I haven’t lost any, whether DOR or SEV. Bottom line, my advice to you is to purchase DOR and SEV cultivars from Northern growers. If you buy EV cultivars, especially from Southern hybridizers, you may be taking a gamble. Here are some Northern hybridizers that I’d recommend:
Nan Ripley, Walkabout Gardens, IA, www.walkaboutgardens.com
Karol Emmerich, Springwood Gardens, MN, Springwoodgardens.com
Mike Grossman, Northern Lights Daylilies, MN, www.northernlightsdaylilies.com/
Paul Genho, Western Daylilies, UT, westerndaylilies.com
How many daylilies do you think you might have room for? Which colors do you prefer?
Here are two other possibilities. Rather than purchasing from hybridizers, perhaps we could provide you with a selection of daylilies at no cost. In early May, NCDC members may well have daylily clumps to share with you. In addition, NCDC has for many years had a collection of about 140 cultivars in a display garden at the Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins. Again, in early May, we will be dividing some of those lilies and could donate some for your garden, if you’d like. Lilies from these sources will be hardy in Cheyenne today, I’m prepared to believe.
I hope that this has been helpful. Please consider joining NCDC. There is no membership fee. We’d love to have you and your wife as members. If you have any questions, please email me directly.
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Northern Colorado Daylily Club