My friend Evyonne always told me to plant at least a df. With that being always my rule of thumb I now have concerns. I have several cultivars that I am down to a single fan due to winter. My question is do any of you just plant a single fan and it do well. Should I plant all those singles close together so they will have a better chance? I know our seedlings start as a single fan and do fine, but they are vigorous when young and a little slower when they grow up. Any comments or advice or any other opinions are greatly appreciated.

I have heard that about double fans too. I have wondered if it refers to actual double fans which are growing together? Which is not always possible to get. Those do seem to do better, I think. I have planted single fans, some do great, some take longer to multiply. But then, some varieties just take longer. I don't think I have had any real problems with survival though, especially in spring. Of course, take what I say with a grain of salt, I am not a pro
By the way, the daylilies I got from you last fall are all up and doing good!

Single fans are fine. Many of my potted daylilies are (still!) single fans and they do just fine, even though the winter freeze-thaw cycle can be nasty and it gets hot in the summer. They aren't quick to increase but I blame the limitations of their confines. I have been tending a nice single fan of Lillian's Ivory Tower and mulling over this very issue. I do suspect that, just like humans being happier with friends and trees being healthier in community with other trees, they do better with buddy fans. Clumps do seem to increase faster beyond just the math.

I would not "nestle" fans of different varieties though. When some increase so quickly, sorting out ID could get tricky in a few years. We plan to avoid ambiguity.

Counterintuitively, if you wanted to put them in the mood for increase you could consider splitting fans at this point in the season. You may not see blooms this year but you may have many more fans in short order. My hypothesis is that this stimulates and activates the growing points. But it's a bit of a gamble and things could go badly. You might win big or lose big.

When I divide clumps I always replant single fans. My experience has been that planting single fans is fine. I have occasionally had problems when the clump has had single fans that were the size of very young seedlings. Some of those have not survived being split from the clump and planted singly. However, some of those have not done any better when I planted them into pots and grew them inside. Some of those have also died.

On the other hand, If a daylily has declined from being a clump of several fans to a single fan then all bets are off. I would probably expect the decline to continue and the last fan to die, usually.

Whether two joined fans (one crown only) will grow and develop better than two single fans is an interesting question. What happens may depend on the size relationships between the two fans. Two large mature fans may do better when they are separate plants - perhaps, while one large mature fan joined to a small immature fan might be beneficial for the smaller fan. Perhaps an interesting scientific research topic.

I have also always been told that a single fan will not do as well as a double fan and I have often wondered why? Somewhere I once read that the double fan reference is to two fans growing from a single crown, not just two single fans being placed together. It seemed to be more a matter of the maturity of the fans than anything.
I have avoided single fans pretty much but I did just buy three off the Lily Auction. We'll see how they do.

They just take a while. I bought a single enormous leek sized fan from Yenok of Blue Ocean Breeze, the most I'd ever paid for a Daylily in the Fall of 2020. It was still 1 fan in the Spring but by October 2021 it had three fans. It made one flower last summer, so at least I know it's the right cv! This Spring it still has three fans so it is in position to start expanding. I might see more action this summer but I'm guessing next year ( third year) will be the one as it is for so many plants. It seems like two fans is mostly insurance, I did lose a lot of single fans this winter but most of those were on plants with multiple fans so I didn't lose the whole plant.

Maybe I'm being foolish, but I stopped buying single fans off the LA for fall planting. There's just a handful of sellers I trust to send me a SF that is so big it has previously bloomed. And I don't trust anything less to make it through if I have a bad winter. I seem to recall losing single fans over the winter more often than double fans (or single fans in the spring). And I've definitely planted double fans in the fall and was down to one fan after that first winter, here. (Zone 5, really inconsistent cold/warm weather in spring.).

And because of this, I don't like taking a chance on a double fan in the fall, and being sent two single fans. I don't consider those the same thing. And one time I remember a seller contacting me and gave me the opportunity to back out on a purchase because all he had left were singles. So I don't think I'm the only one who's thinking like that. But I wouldn't be surprised if I studied it and found out I was overthinking it.

I prefer planting or giving away at least double fans (connected, not separated), they seem to establish faster in my garden. Years ago I got some adult fans (five or more) of SC Sweetness - the seller had divided the plant into single fans for selling, I've got all of them that were left at this time and planted them together to get a clump-like appearance. This 'clump' didn't flower the next season although the fans were not small - the following year the performance was great then.
Maybe by dividing into single fans more of the hair roots are lost and the plant needs a little more time to settle?

I'm enjoying the thoughts of others about this. I believe I would dig the plant and put the single fan in another part of the garden if it looks healthy. I have one spot in my garden where I have lost three plants, so now that is a place that I use as a walkthrough.

If I get a double fan that is connected, I plant them together, but if I get two single fans, I will plant them at least a foot apart so they have room when they clump up and so far that has worked pretty well. I've never had a plant die when I planted either single or double fans, but as mentioned, have had some plants go into decline after a few years of what seemed like healthy growth.

I've had a clump of Cyber Zone for 12 years that I separated into single fans late last summer, and had several fans die. At least a couple have survived to carry on, but I blame myself because I can see that it seems like the roots were heaved out of the ground and should have been planted a little deeper in the soil.

Many of mine were purchased as single fans. All I could afford at the time. Most have increased well, a few (usually evergreens) can take a season or two to get it together. But, I don't recall ever losing one of my single fan purchases. If you are looking for quick gratification, I believe a double fan is best. But, I find it is very much dependent on the individual daylily. I do tend to plant singles where everything is optimal for growth.

I do not buy SFs but plant them or line them out when filling orders. Rarely do I lose them but if I do most likely it is a Evergreen that isn't doing well in my zone 6.

So I took some of my single fan cultivars and moved them. They were being smothered by bigger clumps that wouldn't allow sun to get to them.
Last week I moved a single fan of Max Factor and a Single fan of Flash of Mischief. Both now are scaping. I also moved Apple Blossom White it also now has a scape. I now think that what Jessie George said about moving them was right. He said that when you dig them up they think your trying to kill it so it blooms trying to save itself. That probably isn't his exact words, but that's how I took it.

Diggerofdirt said: He said that when you dig them up they think your trying to kill it so it blooms trying to save itself. That probably isn't his exact words, but that's how I took it.

I don't know about Alabama but in my area and also from research in Maryland, the scapes start to form on many/mosts daylilies before winter but you'd need to dissect the daylily to see them because that is well before they become visible to the naked eye above ground. Ben Arthur Davis in his book noted a test they did in Florida and baby scapes were present in February there. So they start to form long before you can see them above ground so it's not likely to be a short-term response.

In research with Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus floral induction was started ten days after the end of flowering. In the particular location flowering ended on June 21. That means the growing point starts to change from being vegetative and producing only leaves to being reproductive and producing the scape almost a year before the first flower on the scape opens.
That would be the situation in a location and growing conditions where H. lilioasphodelus does not rebloom. However, it is likely that there are locations and conditions under which it can rebloom (seedlings of H. flava, the older name for H. lilioasphodelus can rebloom).
There are modern daylily cultivars that can rebloom three, four, perhaps even more times in a long growing season under the appropriate growing conditions. Indoors, under grow lights some daylilies can rebloom repeatedly on average approximately every 60 days. Since the growing conditions indoors were probably far from optimum I assume that outdoors in the appropriate locations and growing conditions they may be able to rebloom more frequently at shorter intervals.

One year I divided a clump into single fans early in the growing season. When some of those single fans then later produced a scape I removed the scapes as soon as I saw them. Some of those fans then produced a second scape later. I attributed the first scapes to the normal scapes for that cultivar. That cultivar had never rebloomed here (and has never rebloomed since). I attributed the second (rebloom) scapes to reproductive meristems that had started development before I divided the clump and that did not enter their normal rest period because I had divided the clump.

So I take it that location was not in the United States?
Still that is very interesting, never thought about it taking that long for a scape to form. So I guess that means we really do need to fertilize right after blooming stops, and that would be in the late summer to early fall here.
Just thinking in my own situation that a high nitrogen fertilizer applied in October would be my best bet.

Seedfork said: So I take it that location was not in the United States?

For 'H. lilioasphodelus' it was in China.

Still that is very interesting, never thought about it taking that long for a scape to form.

Although the growing point may switch to being reproductive and begin to develop the scape a long time before it appears, that does not necessarily mean that it takes the same length of time for the scape to actually develop. That is, the scape may start to develop and then later complete much of its development and then stop developing for a time (it takes a rest). When the scape actually appears may depend on what happens to the plant - that is, whether anything stops the rest period before it would naturally stop.

So I guess that means we really do need to fertilize right after blooming stops, and that would be in the late summer to early fall here.
Just thinking in my own situation that a high nitrogen fertilizer applied in October would be my best bet.

I fertilize with high nitrogen throughout the growing period. A plant that is flowering or flowering and producing seeds needs to photosynthesize and produce as much in the way of resources as it can since both flowers and seeds require resources that they are unable to produce. The more resources it produces the better it can flower in its next bloom period and the better it can increase, etc. Like most things, of course, there is an optimum amount of nitrogen.