Preparing Daylilies for Shipping

After we dig or unpot the plant we shake any excess soil from the roots and make sure there is a tag around the fan to identify it.



We spray the daylily with a strong blast of water to rinse off the soil and any debris or hiding insects. We wouldn’t want to send any creepy crawlies to anyone.



Once the daylilies are good and clean we do one of 3 things.
You can let the daylilies air dry overnight with no further prep. For me personally, this is what I do so the roots and crown are dry before packing them up.
Other people that I help with daylily shipping like to soak the plants in a 10% bleach solution to kill off any bacteria that may want to rear its ugly head in a dark, maybe moist environment called a box. We usually only soak them for about 10 minutes.



Also, during the hotter months the daylilies will be dipped into a fungicide solution to ward off any bacteria that may want to cause rotting problems later. We usually use Banrot which is a fungicide made for rot causing fungus and bacteria.



No matter what we soak, dip, or don’t dip the daylilies in, we generally let them air dry overnight so the plant will be dry. This is just an extra precaution to keep any bacteria from wanting to show up and cause any problems when shipping from our hotter, more humid climate.



When we are ready to pack up the daylilies we just wrap them in newspaper. We don’t use the glossy ink sales paper; we have been told this will harm the daylilies. I don’t know how true this is, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.



Then we put them in the correct size box and write “LIVE PLANTS, DON’T DELAY” on it so the mail carrier will know not to leave the package in the sun or in those multi-unit postal boxes that some neighborhoods have.



We then take the packages to the post office or have the mail carrier pick them up. We have found the best days to ship on are Monday, Tuesday, or Saturday. If you ship on the other days it seems to take longer to get to its destination. Since the postal service is in transit 7 days a week the packages will not sit in a truck or building over the weekend waiting to be delivered, so shipping on a Saturday is not an issue. Most of the time if we ship on Saturday the package will arrive on Monday.
And this is how we prepare daylilies to ship.