I'm wondering why Wilds has started selling some of the dl potted? I have not really heard of that before. I have not ordered any but I understand they are fairly small pots? Do they sell tissue cultured dl? For instance on page 2 they list Biker Babe as potted for $12.50 and claims that many catalogs list it for $70. What is up with that? I noticed this on several of their listings. So if that is the case, how can they sell a $70 plant for $12 ?! Something doesn't add up to me. I have heard TC dl is not a good thing, but that is what I am thinking in the back of my mind , anyone have comments on this?

Earlier this year, I did get a potted daylily from Wilds. It was a very tiny pot, about the size of a seed tray section.

I have no idea if Wilds sells tissue cultured daylily or not. I doubt they would tell you.

Daylily prices can be all over the board. Some sellers can be asking $150.00 on a plant and you'll find it elsewhere for $50.00.
I'd say it all depends on what you want to do and who the sellers are.

There have been positive and negative reports on Wilds.
I can say the plants I got from them this year have all bloomed and many set pods.

Frillylily said:I'm wondering why Wilds has started selling some of the dl potted? I have not really heard of that before. I have not ordered any but I understand they are fairly small pots? Do they sell tissue cultured dl? For instance on page 2 they list Biker Babe as potted for $12.50 and claims that many catalogs list it for $70. What is up with that? I noticed this on several of their listings. So if that is the case, how can they sell a $70 plant for $12 ?! Something doesn't add up to me. I have heard TC dl is not a good thing, but that is what I am thinking in the back of my mind , anyone have comments on this?

The hybridizer of BIKER BABE has it listed for $70 on their website and it is a 2012 intro so I don't see how they can have enough to sell otherwise for $12.50 unless it was TC. I'm not saying they do but even I wouldn't have enough of a stock of this plant to sell it at that price and I can get good increase pretty quickly here.
I was going to copy and paste what it says on their website but it won't let me. On their website it says here http://www.gilberthwild.com/DA... that they pot their newer intros in 3 x 3 x 3.5 pots and the SF are the size of a thumb and DF are the size of two fingers. They may be potting these and they may be that small because they are tissue cultured but like was said they probably wouldn't tell you if they did. Why would they start potting them when all the rest are grown in the field.

well like you said the only way they can mass produce (even a limited amount of say 100-200 plants) is to TC. I think I would be leery of ordering anything potted and just stick to the older field dug ones they offer. What I have ordered from them in the past did great for me, but they do send pretty small plants sometimes. I don't always get what I ordered, but they are a cheap place to get something colorful if you aren't picky that the names are right 100%. I just think the TC issue is shady. I'm fine with it, IF they let customers know ahead of time that it is TC. But they wouldn't do that, either way we don't know. But for now, I am not buying anything potted from them because I'm suspicious.

When I ordered from Wild's back in March, I only got one plant in a small pot. I wondered why that was. However, it was the best looking and largest plant of them all. I thought it would be the first to bloom but it was actually the second one to bloom, I think. The plant was Tuscawilla Tigress, that plant was registered back in 1988, so I really have no idea why it was in a pot and the others were not. I think I will ask them, the last e-mail I sent them never received a reply however.
Well I sent them an e-mail and will relay the reply if I get one. I noticed that they state the pots are the same size as the ones they use in their field planting and they state the plants grow very fast due to the roots developed in the pots. I am wondering if that means the plants are actually planted out in the field in the pots? I did ask them to explain that.
Oh, no I have not received the flyer.

Hmmmm intersting

well that IS wierd. My mom has Tuscawilla Tigress and it is a robust grower and an older one, TC would make no sense for that. I have sent emails to Wild's before also and did not get a response. My guess is they purchase very cheap- large quantities -of small potted starts and plant those in the fields. ? That is the only thing that makes sense there. But still it is a mystery to me how they offer the newer intros like that.

I had looked at that site--should I not buy from there? I'm not even a little bit "in the know" about what's new and cool, I just look at the flowers and say "Ooh, pretty".

The are ok if you want some pretty color cheaply, and are not into the 'newest'. They have a lot of older ones that are really nice. The thing is they sometimes send the wrong thing, so cheap color and pretty blooms, but not if you are more particular or into hybridizing. Their stuff is small but a little pampering the first yr is all it takes. I don't think I have ever lost a plant from them. Another place that has older affordable ones is Homestead Farms in Owensville MO, he sends nice big plants and they are true to name.
http://www.homesteadfarms.com/ Ron is a nice guy to deal with.

Wynn's Daylilies also has good prices:
http://www.wynnsdaylilygarden....

This morning I received a reply from G.H. Wild, it was very straight forward and honest, much more honest than some expected I think.


My e-mail
In the All Things Plants daylily forum the question has arisen about your potted newer variety daylilies. Some are asking if they may be Tissue Culture plants. The home page mentions these pots being the same size as the pots used for filed planting, can you describe how that process works? The home page also states that all plants are shipped blooming sized. I ordered plants back in March and they were certainly not blooming sized. They did grow into blooming sized plants and all but Awesome Blossom have bloomed already.
I will relay your response to the forum. Thank you in advance for your reply.

The reply I received:
Greg Jones <[email protected]>
8:34 AM (1 hour ago)
1. Some are asking if they may be Tissue Culture plants. Some of these are divisions purchased directly from US hybridizers like Charles & Heidi Douglas at Brown’s Ferry and potted and some are propagated by tissue culture and field grown for 3 years in the Netherlands prior to be inspected and shipped here and then potted.

2. The home page mentions these pots being the same size as the pots used for field planting, can you describe how that process works? All of the plants are shipped in the spring/summer, potted and bloomed out. We then determine which varieties we want to grow for future years and which varieties we want to offer the next season. So we use the same size container for propagation as we do for sales.

3. The home page also states that all plants are shipped blooming sized. We also state in the catalog that all potted plants are 1 fan divisions. In a pot we get 95%+ to bloom the first year.







Greg Jones
Managing Partner
Gilbert H. Wild and Son LLC
2944 State Highway 37
Reeds, MO 64859

Oh, I did get the brochure in the mail Saturday, but did not check the mail till Sunday!

Got the flier and have ordered from them a couple of times. No real complaints about what I received.

Is there any research showing that tissue culture daylilies are now more stable? Does anyone know the outcome of daylilies that were tissue culture grown, then field grown for three years?

I wish I knew more about TC, but I don't. I have always heard they have problems and are not the same as direct divisions from a plant. Would be interesting to see how the Wild's ones compare to the others.

It would be interesting to here about tissue culture. If you think about it, how can clones be inferior to parents? Maybe environmental factors are also involved?

Gleni said:It would be interesting to here about tissue culture. If you think about it, how can clones be inferior to parents? Maybe environmental factors are also involved?

Some plants that are tissue cultures do well and there are no issues and I have heard some do better than the mother plant, but daylilies are another matter. It tends to bring out the bad traits. TC daylilies can have duller coloring, less buds, less branching, weak plant altogether. If daylilies are evaluated properly to watch the clones and make sure they are inline with the mother plant then it would be ok but mass producing them and then not evaluating to make sure they are good is where the issues come in.

So I guess growing the plants to blooming size and evaluating them, then deciding which ones to grow on further, then growing them in the field for three more years would be a pretty good evaluation of the TC plants.
This article seems to highlight the method used by Wilds may be very common in the daylily industry.
Go all the way down to Propagation, I could not copy and paste.
http://www.caes.uga.edu/extens...
This article indicates how fast TC is growing and gives a pretty good description of the process.
fshs.org/proceedings-o/1976-vol-89/367-368%20(STRODE).pdf
Sorry I could not get the link to work, but copy and past the above in the search box and it seems to work.
So who knows what is tissue culture grown and what is not? Is a plant considered to be tissue culture grown if it is three or four generations down the line? Once a plant has been grown using TC are all the following descendants considered to be TC plants, or can the grower claim to be growing "Field Grown" plants?

Seedfork said:So I guess growing the plants to blooming size and evaluating them, then deciding which ones to grow on further, then growing them in the field for three more years would be a pretty good evaluation of the TC plants.

That's if they actually evaluate them.

This is just IMHO so take it as you will since I don't know any of the info on how they grow them.

You have to remember these are field grown in the Netherlands for 3 years so who knows if they actually evaluate them or not. If they grow the daylilies there like at the tulip farms (endless stretches of flowers) I really don't know that they could properly evaluate them or not. I don't know how long a tissue culture daylily takes to grow to mature size but they may just grow them for 3 years to get a good size on them or just to make sure they look similar to the mother plant. Shoot it may take 3 years for them to bloom depending on their weather I suppose. I would imagine it would sort of be like growing a seedling in some areas where it takes 3 years to see a bloom depending on how long their seasons are.
Honestly, I don't see how anyone who mass produces plants on the scale that some of these places do to wholesale to who knows how many companies, nurseries, big box stores, etc could possibly evaluate them all. I could see them looking at the blooms to make sure they look similar to the mother plant but I can't see how they could possibly make sure they all have the correct height, bloom size, bud count, and any thing else that needed to be correct.

here is one of the question and answer you form Wild's

1. Some are asking if they may be Tissue Culture plants. Some of these are divisions purchased directly from US hybridizers like Charles & Heidi Douglas at Brown’s Ferry and potted and some are propagated by tissue culture and field grown for 3 years in the Netherlands prior to be inspected and shipped here and then potted.

The inspected part is not an evaluation in my opinion. They are inspected in order to be shipped to another country and that is basically just someone looking at the plants and making sure they have no visible diseases or pests and you pay them a fee and they sign a paper saying you can ship.

I agree with Michelle. The only way to evaluate a tc plant properly would be to grow the plant in it's natural division along side it to compare to. It would take more than three years to reach a mature clump from TC and be able to evaluate all the qualities. How would they evaluate the resistance to disease or fungus ect if the Netherlands did not have the same environmental elements as the US. Even here in the US there are variances in one area to the next. This could explain why some people love dl ABC while the next person says it is wimpy and just doesn't do right after several years they toss it out.