Continuing on yesterday's post about growing daylilies in pots...

My first mix, while it looked great going into the pots, turned out to be too loose which caused problems (see yesterday's post). So the following year I started searching for a better base for the mix. During the search I stumbled upon a bulk mix specifically designed for containers. Nature's Way Resources in Conroe TX had started offering a container mix that it claimed to drain well while retaining moisture and did not become compacted so it was suitable for long term container use. It also was supposed to be heavy enough to keep plants upright in the pots. That was perfect because mixing the components for each individual pot the previous year was extremely labor intensive. With this mix I could just shovel it into the pot and then plant. So I purchased a yard of it. Their website doesn't list how it's made so I can't tell you what's in it.

At first I thought the mix was way too heavy. I didn't think it would continue to drain once it got settled in the pot, but I was wrong. I have used the mix in some pots for a couple of years now and it still drains as well now as it did when I first put it in the pots. More important, the daylilies in this mix have performed well. My only concern now is how much work it will be when I decide to repot because of how much the 7-gal pots weigh when the mix is wet.

One of the other observation I've made about daylilies in pots is that some daylilies don't really like to be grown in pots. They grew and bloomed better when they were in the ground. But there are other daylilies that seemed happier in pots than in the ground. One of these that likes growing in the pot was WALTER KENNEDY. I grew it for several years and it never did much. It had low bud count and little rebloom. I even moved it to a different garden location with the same results. But when I put it in the pot it took off. Bud counts doubled, the scapes were taller, it sent out up to 3 sets of scapes, and multiplied like a weed. CARIBBEAN MAGIC is another that does much better in a pot. It typically has a higher bud count when grown in a pot.

Bottom line... if tree roots were not an issue, I would rather grow directly in the ground. It does take more water to keep them looking good but overall they do better in the ground. Now that I have eliminated much of the tree root problem from the front beds, I'll probably transplant from the pots back into the ground. The back yard however still has a root problem so pots will have to remain.

Seedling 15-038

Mississippi MementoParrot Jungle

Today's seedling is 15-038, another new one from this year. The cross was [Mississippi Memento x Parrot Jungle]. It inherited it's base color from Mississippi Memento and the bloom shape from Parrot Jungle. The bloom is a little larger than either parent and the edge is more pronounced.

I should probably say that while I have a few seedlings that I'm quite excited about, many of those I'm posting are just pretty faces. I post them along with their parentage just as examples of what results can be realized from various crosses with the hope of encouraging newcomers to try their hand at hybridizing. For me it's the best part of the daylily hobby!

I was going to title this post "Observations on Pot Growing" but I decided that not everyone would appreciate my sense of humor. It's probably better to call it "Observations on growing daylilies in pots" (smile).

A few years back I started growing daylilies in 7-gal pots. I was having a major problem with tree roots sucking all the moisture from the garden soil and even lost some daylilies due to root strangulation. I had heard of other growers growing in pots and thought it would possibly be a good solution.

The first year I decided to mix my own potting medium. I started with a base of what is known here as 'Rose soil', a mix of topsoil, ground pine bark mulch, and sand. The idea was to start with something that wouldn't compact and then improve it. I added Perlite, Vermiculite, compost, and some Watersorb crystals. The idea was for it to have moisture holding ability but still drain reasonably well. I even mixed each 7-gal pot individually to ensure that the ingredients were identical.

The first year after transplanting, the daylilies languished for several months before starting to grow. I planted in the fall (best time here in Houston) but the plants took so long to get settled in that my bloom season didn't even start until most gardens around here were at peak. The bloom that year was not very good with low bud counts and quite a few cultivars didn't bloom at all.

One of my concerns was how the daylilies would handle hot summer sun with the black plastic pots setting above ground. It turned out to be pretty much a non-factor. That could be because of the way I had the pots in east-to-west rows allowing each pot to give some shade to the pots next to them. My next concern was that I would have to water them every day. That also turned out not to be the case. Every other day was just fine. The biggest surprise was that I actually saved water. The amount of time to water the pots was less than half what it had previously taken to water the same beds.

So other than the poor first year bloom (normal after transplanting) I was pleased with the results from the first year. The second year was a mixed bag however. During the winter the plants grew like gangbusters. The fans were some of the best in years. I excitedly waited for bloom which arrived right on schedule. It was a pretty good year for bloom and I began to think this experiment was going to be a success. Then the 2nd summer arrived...

During the 2nd summer quite a few of the daylilies seemed to suffer from the heat more than usual. In the fall I unpotted them to see if there was anything to be learned. What I discovered was that just about every cultivar that had declined had a smaller root system than those that had continued to grow well. This is not to say that the pot caused the root system to be smaller. I believed that something else was in play and I eventually figured out what it was.

It turns out that because the potting mix was so loose, the sand tended to migrate toward the bottom of the pot with every watering. The cultivars with extensive root systems tended to hold the sand in place keeping the mix fairly homogeneous while the smaller rooted cultivars did nothing to stop the sand from moving down. I also found that the ability of the soil to hold moisture was related to the amount of sand in it. The pots where much of the sand had left the top part of the mix and were concentrated in the lower part were not evenly moist. The top part of the soil (where most of the daylily roots were located) drained so quickly that the water wasn't being obsorbed very well by the remaining mix ingredients. The bottom however became compacted due to the high sand ratio and often would still be soggy a couple of days after watering.

The observation from this was that the growing mix is probably the most important factor in successfully growing daylilies in pots. In my next post I'll continue this thread.

Seedling 15-077

Springtime RomanceDiamond Silk

Today's seedling is 15-077 from the cross [Springtime Romance x Diamond Silk]. Its maiden bloom was this past season so I don't yet know how it will perform. It has a 6" bloom but the scape height was a little shorter than I like (I like tall scapes!).

I've been accused of being overly organized and perhaps I am sometimes. I'm one of those people who likes having a plan so nothing gets forgotten along the way. This especially holds true when it comes to reworking my fall garden.

I maintain a list of all my daylilies in Excel. Each has the current location and is organized by bed. Here's a snippit showing the column headings. The left side is the current layout and the right side is where I list any planned changes.

Prior to starting my fall garden reworking, I make the decision as to which cultivars or seedlings will be moved to another location or removed from the garden completely. Once this is completed, I know how many open spaces I will have for new cultivars or seedlings. Then it's just a matter of deciding what is going in each of these open spots.

Then when the time comes I print out the spreadsheets and I have a ready made checklist so nothing gets forgotten. It even has columns for me to mark when I've completed each task.

Seeding 15-011

Martin BlondeelCalamity Jane

Today's seedling is number 15-011. It's the result of a cross between Martin Blondeel and Calamity Jane. It inherited the bold eye from Martin Blondeel while it inherited improved substance, color, and bud count from Calamity Jane. I'm not sure where it got it's scape height however as neither parent is anywhere near as tall.

This is the primary season for crown rot, at least in my garden. The first sign of crown rot is an overall yellowing of leaves. The plant then quickly dies. You can confirm that rot is the culprit by pulling the dead fan. It will have rotted off just under the surface and the rotted end stinks.

Most daylilies can usually fight off rot as long as they are healthy. IMHO, plants become susceptible to rot when they become stressed. Things that can stress a plant include (but are not limited to) prolonged high heat and humidity, having a soil that holds water and drains poorly, a hot dry spell followed by a lengthy heavy rain, putting too many seed pods on a plant, and physical injury to the plant. I have even seen some cultivars stress themselves by overblooming. This usually happens when the early season conditions were optimal resulting in high bud counts and lots of rebloom followed by hot, dry weather.

One observation I have made here is that while I lose an occasional plant during the heat of summer, September and early October produce a surprising number of cases of rot. I'm not sure why this is but it could be because the plants have been stressed for so long by the heat or the summer or perhaps the moderating temperatures allow for an increase in the soil pathogens that cause rot.

I used to try and treat the plants as soon as I noticed the yellowing leaves. I now let the chips fall where they may when it comes to rot. My thinking is that a seedling that rots isn't worth saving as it might also rot in someone else's garden and I certainly don't want to use a registered cultivar that rots as a parent in my crosses. Whatever makes a plant susceptible to rot can be passed on to seedlings. One year I planted 20+ plants from a cross where one of the plants carried what I call 'the rot gene'. I didn't know that when I made the cross. Every one of the 20+ plants rotted after blooming the first year. I was able to identify the parent cultivar that carried the rot gene because I had used it quite extensively in many of my crosses. When I compared the parentage for all the seedlings I lost that year (and there were many), the culprit was evident.

Seedling 13-020

Probably the highest percentage of seedlings that rot are those with smallish plants and less than spectacular blooms. I really don't miss these much. It's just the way things go when you hybridize. Occasionally however a seedling with exceptional blooming will suddenly rot. I think it may be because it couldn't handle the stress of putting out so many scapes and blooms. When it's a pretty daylily it can be a little sad but I'd rather have them die now than after investing several years growing them out and having them die later.

Seedling 13-020 is one of those that died this year that saddened me a bit. It had wonderful branching and a bud count around 30. It had that round form that I prize and a nice gold edge. It was on it's 3rd set of scapes when all 3 fans suddenly went yellow. There were still unopened buds on a scape after the plant died.

I sometimes find this time of year to be a little difficult. I'm anxious to get started reworking my garden but the daytime temperatures are still in the 90's. That means I'm still limited to only a couple of hours in the garden before the sun gets too hot for me. So I'm limited to maintenance tasks. Today, I did some more weeding and pruned the roses. And right now I'm moving the hose around from bed to bed.

Seedling 15-025

Dragon KnifeBella Vita

I like the color combination of orange with a red eye. This is seedling 15-025, new this year. It had a pretty good bud count for its maiden bloom and even though it has a recurve form, the bloom still measured out at 6".

Summer refuses to give up here but that hasn't stopped me from getting going on my fall garden work. Today, I finished my fall fertilization that I began a couple of weeks ago. The fall feeding here in Houston is the most important feeding of the year. The plants have languished during the hot summer and now they need something to perk them up and get them growing again.

I also began making a list of plants for my spring yard sale. Because I'm cutting back on the size of my garden, I'll be selling off some of my favorites again next spring. In about a month I'll start reworking my garden. It's always a lot of work but the weather will be much cooler by then and it will be great to be able to work outside for more than a few hours a day.

Seedling 14-058

What Love Can DoPriscilla's Smile

Today's seeding is 14-058. It comes from the cross (WHAT LOVE CAN DO x PRISCILLA'S SMILE). The first year it bloomed, the pink color was more pronounced. I'm not sure why it was lighter this year but it should settle down and show its true color this coming spring.

Today I tracked down the parentage for the seedlings that bloomed for the first time this year. The markers I use between crosses are very short and quite difficult to find when the seedlings are blooming as the foliage is so lush. I always wait until the end of the summer and the foliage is at its smallest to locate the markers and record the crosses.

The process is simple. When the seedlings were transplanted, I created a map that listed the cross numbers in each row in the order they were planted. Today I walked the rows marking down the flag numbers next to the matching cross in the map. The last step is to transfer the cross numbers to each flagged seedling number in my records. It works pretty well most of the time.

Seedling 14-060

What I like about today's seedling is the color. It's not a color that I have seen often in my garden. I would probably call the petal color a 'light salmon'. It's somewhere between a pink and a light orange. It's only a 5" bloom but it looks to have a decent bud count. I didn't keep track of bud counts this year so I can't say just how many.

Summer seems to be fading into fall early this year. Today was just spectacular with blue skies and a cool breeze. The 2" of rain yesterday made the ground perfect for weeding. So I headed out to take on the fresh crop of nutgrass that has sprung up literally in the past month. I'm certainly no expert on nutgrass but a thing or two can always be learned from observations.

What I noticed today was that the nutgrass was fairly easy to remove. Whereas a month ago I was lucky to get the attached nut with 30% of the plants, today I got the attached nut with probably 95% of the plants. That tells me that this was a new crop that just started growing from those old nuts deep in the soil. I suspect that if I left these long enough they would have gone to seed. Of course this doesn't solve my nutgrass problem but my timely removal of these nuts will probaby keep it from being worse next summer.

Seedling 14-078

Today's seedling is number 14-078, another with a decent edge that first bloomed last year. When I was documenting crosses last year, what I showed in my records didn't even make any sense looking at the bloom. Sometimes a bee can inadvertently pollenate a flower resulting in a few surprises. In those cases I can usually still see a resemblance to the pod parent in the resulting bloom. In this case however, the pod parent was a cream-yellow self and the pollen parent was yellow with a red eye and edge.

Occasionally mistakes do happen no matter how hard I try to be accurate. I guess I'll have to change the parentage in my records to (unknown x unknown). Now I understand why even some of the better known hybridizers have occasional registrations with unknown parentage.

The moderated temperatures over the past few weeks and some needed rain combined to bring an early appearance of daylily rust in the garden. So far I have only spotted it in a dozen or so plants but that means a full fledged outbreak could be near if I didn't do something now.

So today I made my first fall spraying for rust. One of the things I learned from my rust research was that it's important to not let rust get a foothold in the garden (see my series on rust in this blog starting back on June 20th, 2015). For years I have waited until rust was running rampant before spraying and then it would take several weeks to get it under control. This fall I decided to start spraying at the first signs of rust.

My spray mix consisted of Cleary's 336F, Dithane 75DF, and Triac 70 mixed in my Spot-Shot sprayer. With foliage being reduced by the summer heat, I was able to spray all the plants with 7 gallons of spray. In the spring when the foliage is at its maximum, the same number of plants can take more than twice that amount of spray.

Seedling 15-071

This is seedling 15-071. It comes from the cross (MAGICAL MYSTERY SHOW x ANSWERING ANGELS).

Northern gardeners define their daylily season as spring thru fall. Daylilies just don't do much when the ground is frozen and covered with snow and ice (smile). Here along the gulf coast my daylily growing season typically starts in the fall and continues through early summer. While daylilies will continue blooming into the summer, it is usually so hot the bloom quality leaves a little to be desired.

I have always marked the actual beginning of my daylily season as Labor Day weekend. For years I planted my seeds on this weekend and it has been my first daylily related project of the season. With no seeds to plant this year, I had to find something else daylily related to do on this 3-day weekend.

This year we have already had a couple of early fronts that have moderated the temperatures somewhat. As I was watering the other night, I noticed that the daylilies were already starting their new fall growth. That signals to me that it's time to feed them so that's what I did today.

While I prefer making alfalfa and manure teas to feed the plants naturally, they take quite a bit of time to prepare which I just haven't had this year. I always take some vacation time later in the fall and I'll have more time to make some alfalfa teas then. For this feeding, I purchased a time-release 12-6-8 topdress fertilizer. I selected one that had a 2-3 month life because I wanted most of the nutrients to be available fairly quickly but not all at once. I used about 2 oz. per 7-gal pot as specified on the bag.

I also fed the baby seedling I planted in the ground back in the spring. They are looking good but the plants have remained on the small side because I planted them in late spring right before the summer heat set in. Because of the way I transplant my new seedlings, I have to use a hose-on sprayer to apply the fertilizer in liquid form. I used a light application of Miracle Grow. My seedling planting method can be found here

Seedling 14-077

Cimarron_rosePriscilla's Smile

Today's seedling is 14-077. It comes from the cross (CIMARRON ROSE x PRISCILLA'S SMILE). This image was taken in early morning sun which really brought out the red color. This particular cross has resulted in some interesting seedlings. Several were similar to Cimarron Rose only with a better edge.