I'm pretty new to daylilies....or flower gardening in general.

I have a bunch of evergreen daylilies (Wild Horses) that I want to thin and transplant. The folage is huge, 31 inch tall leaves an inch wide. Much larger than the other daylilies in my garden.

Should I trim them back when transplanting? How much and what about the daylily I'm leaving. Should it be trimmed, too?

I won't do this until fall, but am trying to plan ahead.

Thanks for any responses.

Yes you should trim back the foliage when transplanting because there will be some root damage from the digging. Reducing the amount of foliage will make it easier for the remaining roots to keep up with the water needs of the plant. How much to cut would depend on the weather where you are at the time, but a rough suggestion would be to cut the leaves back by about two thirds.

Unless you cause a lot of damage to the roots of the plant that you're leaving it should not need to be trimmed.

It would help to know where you are, because although evergreens can be just as hardy as non-evergreen daylilies, looking at the parentage I would not move that cultivar in the fall in a cold winter area. I was warned that the original 'Cleopatra' would not be hardy in my area, and I assume that should apply to the tet version also.

Thanks for your response, Sooby. And I appreciate any other suggestions you have to offer.

These guys are so large that I didn't see how to move them without trim. I'll do it in the fall.

Sorry. Should have given you more info. I'm pretty much in the middle of Oklahoma. Zone 7. We moved here a few years ago from the southern part of the state. I expected more cold winters, ice and snow. But, so far, our winters have been mild. Freezes, yes, but not prolonged freezing weather.

These daylilies are in a flowerbed in the middle of a circle drive. I've just been letting the leaves that fall there stay through the winter as mulch. So far so good.

There must be 100 buds out there. If I can hold the deer off another two weeks......

Now if I am shipping or receiving plants sent in the mail I trim the foliage and expect it to be trimmed when the plants arrive. However, if I am digging and separating plants in my own garden it can be a different story. If I dig a huge clump, whack it into say four large pieces, I just replant the four large pieces and do not trim the foliage. If I decide to really do a complete dividing of the plant down to two fan sections, then I will trim the plants. Of course, sometimes because a plant is so big, I will trim it before digging just to be able to see where to dig.

Larry, just an observation and it may depend on the time of year, but not trimming the foliage when digging, dividing and transplanting can cost you flowers (I've seen this happen). Leaving full foliage on is more stressful for the plant if the leaves wilt (which is where amount of root lost and prevailing weather come into the equation).

I guess with large sections of a big clump the root loss was not enough to impact the plants to a large enough degree for me to have noticed a loss of the flowers. This is also digging the clump and replanting the large divisions immediately. I try not to be digging and dividing in very hot weather, not so much for the plants sake as for mine.
You do make a good point, but even in cool weather and smaller (two fan sections) I have left the foliage untrimmed if the fans have retained enough soil that the roots seem almost undisturbed (I know some roots will be damaged probably) but they seem to recover faster than those with the roots and fans trimmed, because they stay greener and not wilt so much.