Okay, so I have no choice but to move in October, late October, which means my day lillies will probably have died back and going or gone into dormancy. So my question is. How much will it harm them to be dug up and moved at that time??

I really don't know... but couldn't you pot them now?

I forgot to mention they have seed pods on them lol sorry

I'm not an expert, sorry I can't be of help!
I'm sure someone more experienced will chime in

Oh gosh, October is really late to be moving daylilies. Could you pot them and store them in a heated garage over winter??? Do you have a lot to move??

I like the garage idea, but if no garage I would heavily mulch the area where I where I would plant. Remove that to plant, then mulch again. I have had luck planting when there was a bit of frozen ground; just one plant and it did live. Good luck!

For what it's worth, I've purchased plants with seed pods on them from daylily gardens and the transplanting doesn't seem to harm them too much. I'm not sure I would recommend doing it frequently, but if you're in a pinch, I really don't think it would hurt much. I'm not an expert, but just thought I'd throw my two cents in because I've had 4-5 cultivars this season that I purchased with seed pods and the pods kept developing even after I brought them home and seemed to do just fine. I should also mention that 3 of these cultivars were kept in pots and the other was in a very shallow raised garden bed that kept drying out...so definitely not ideal conditions! I don't know how the late-season would affect them, but if you have to do it, you have to do it, right?

Are you moving to another zone 5 area, or are you moving somewhere warmer?

I bought a house 2 blocks from where I am now lol.

I bought a few special daylilies very late for my zone last year. I potted them in 3 gallon pots and then planted the pots in the ground where I was going to plant them this year. My plan was to pull the pot and bring it inside in case of a really bad cold snap. We didn't have one so after six weeks I just left them in the ground in the pots.

This spring I pulled the pots and then pulled the plant which kept the shape of the pot and fit the hole in the ground. It worked pretty well. I did have one root ball break up but that wasn't a problem as I just planted it like a freshly dug Daylily.

Good luck!

I may just end up planting them in a 3 gallon pot and put in my insulated garage but it's not heated.

Explain to the sellers that you REALLY need to move your plants into their new home before you move in. That should work.

The really good thing is that you are only moving two blocks away. I moved all of mine 12 hours away, and kept them out of the ground for about 2 weeks, and not potted up. I just left all the dirt on them, and stuck them in plastic bags. When the garden here was ready, I stuck the clump in the ground, watered them in, and they never missed a beat. The roots really weren't disturbed much, since I left all of the dirt on them, so they did just fine. I would think that by the time you are ready to start digging, that seed pod could be ready, so I wouldn't worry about that, either.

Good luck, and congratulations on your new home!

Cross posted with you!

Thank you Natalie. It's my first house. Very excited about making my lilly beds!!

Congrats on your first house. If any plant can survive its the daylily. Any tougher and they would be like cockroaches. Potting them sounds best to me and at least they would be out of the wind in your garage. Don't how fast winter comes on in your area but maybe even set the pots against the house and pile some dirt on to the tops for insulation or have dirt hauled in where you are going to make a new bed next year and bury the pots there.
Any way you choose i bet you get a good survival rate or at least i hope you do. Our second house is only half mile away from our first one in the same zip code.

A little over twenty years ago, when we sold our previous house, we had pretty much given up on it selling that fall, but wouldn't you know, someone put in an offer in the last few days of the listing. It was a good one, and we accepted it. However, it was mid-October, and the ground could freeze at any time. I have a friend with a farm, and she said I could overwinter anything I wanted in her plowed field. I quickly dug up irises, daylilies, peonies, and assorted other perennials. The people who bought the house had no interest in the garden, and said I could take anything that I wanted.
I didn't figure I had anything to lose. I dug the plants with generous root balls, and drove them over to my friend's farm, and immediately dug them into her field. That was the last week of October to the first week of November. The last day I planted, there was a crust of frozen earth on the surface.
The next spring, everything came up, and everything survived. I did the reverse, and dug everything up with a big root ball, and moved them to our new property. I still have those plants, and they formed the backbone of one of my long borders.
I don't know if you would have the success that I had, but that is what I did when faced with moving and not wanting to lose my favourite plants.

Thank you every for your suggestions and encouraging personal stories . Guess I'm just a little nervous as I've never done anything like this before lol.

Congrats on the home purchase and good luck moving your daylilies. Daylilies can be pretty tough plants! All the above advice sounds good!

just dig them up with a good deal of soil around the root ball. Replant at the new place and water. Next year they may not even look like they were moved. mulch them well. I was in zone 5 and moved mine up until thanksgiving or so and they always did fine.