I plan to give my new camera a workout when I start getting blooms. so far, I'm really happy with it.

WOW Michele, I thought they was that big. My pots can only handle so much. I'm even thinking I may have to trim a few of the roots so as not to over crowd them all. If they were any bigger, I would have to go up to that 7 gallon pot size and buy more stock in Miracle Grow Soil Company. Of course, I'm using mostly pine bark mulch in the pots now that I know it's ok. I'd guess maybe 60/40 pinebark to soil or it could way more on the bark side.

I started using the alfalfa pellets last fall and was way way happy with the results. I'm in the process of cleaning out the dead stuff from my pots now. Then I'm adding the pellets, Florikan(16-4-12 was the closest to 3-1-2 I could get here) and about a tablespoon of lime to each pot. The Florikan is ordered for me from a local privately owned nursery. It's expensive, $85 per 50#, but I'm hoping it will be worth it. I read about putting lime in the soil from Fred and several others that use mostly pine bark to offset the ph that comes with pines.

I tried the pot in pot thing with just one little pot last year that I had a prolif growing in. The pot was small, it was hot and dry and I really didn't want to take the time to repot it. So, I put a double handful of mulch in a bigger pot and set the little one in it. Worked like a charm at giving it the extra moisture it needed. So, if it goes to getting really hot and dry(which we all know it will this year), I can put my best pots inside others if needed. I used to sink my pots down into the soil to get this same effect but, darned voles found this to be a highway to heavenly brunch of the roots in my pots. So, I no longer countersink the pots into the ground. It worked in helping to keep the roots to growing and giving them more room than pot could provide but I lost all but a one fan of 5 or 6 plants to the devilish voles. I was plumb impressed at their highways they had in the soil. So impressed that I screamed with delight!! I had to pull up about 100 pots out of the ground and fill in the holes.

After I got your plants today, I just had to take one of my plants that was repotted last year(dated 8-19-11) out of the pot to see how it was growing. It's roots were nothing as good as yours, but so much better than they were that I'm sure they will only get better. I'd say I had maybe half as much in new root growth as you do. Plus my plant itself was about half as big as yours. I figure in maybe 6 more weeks, my plants should be as big as they were in November before the freeze hit. I'll be really happy if they are.

You have set a really high standard for everyone else!! You should be very proud of all the hard work, the rewards are in the words of praise you'll get and the beautiful blooms to come!! I hope to see some pictures of your babies soon. By the way, do you have scapes???

Thanks again for the great plants. I've grinned all day. Blessings to you, Mona

I do have scapes, lots and lots of scapes coming up everyday. But they are still a ways off from blooming though. I think most of the ones I sent you are evergreens or semi- evergreens that lean more to the evergreen side. I do have some that are a lot smaller than the ones I sent you, but they were either dormants or the semi- ev that lean toward dormant. I just have to also remind myself that some daylilies just make small fans naturally.
When I get plants in with long roots I trim them as well so they will fit better in the pots or hole. Some people say that it promotes new root growth faster, but I don't know if it really does or not.

Hope the day is nice for you to get outside and play in the dirt.

Mona, I use plastic kitty litter bins as pots. They are huge and deep, and the bigger ones, I stick a piece of old plywood down the middle, and can plant two daylilies in it, one on each side. I drill a couple of holes in the bottom for drainage, and I too like to pop one on top of the other when necessary.

You will LOVE Pandora's Treasure.

Michelle, your DL look great, nice job! ~Jan

Hi Jan, I have been given a few of the kitty litter buckets, but I don't have many. I use them for totes, soaks, and storage. I never ever through away a bucket or anything that might hold soil or water,especially the bigger stuff. My neighbors hate me. I tend to leave buckets sitting around the yard and then there my leaves that don't get raked or cut until late Spring(long after a lot have gone to their-UGHUGHUGH!!! THATS OH NO'S I just found a tick on me!!!!!!!!! I walked around the yard making pictures while its cloudy. I guess we know how bad they'll be this year. I normally don't worry about them until first of May. My grandaughter got one at the lake yesterday, but it's covered in pines and kinda expected, but not here!!!!

I'm stingy with my buckets, the five gallon size have to be pried out of my arms if someone wants to borrow one. AKA my son never has them and after mine are cleaned by DH, son always wants them. DH found s!ome dirty ones at son's place, brought them home with us, cleaned them and along comes son and wants them back.NONONONONONO

Arent we terrible???/

I dug out my pots yesterday. I have some really tall 3 gallon size that I used on the other order I got in Wednesday. Michele's order is still soaking. Looks like we'll get a storm in a little while, so they may get to soak in root stimulator another day. It won't hurt them. I've done this for up to a week without damage. I have several of the 7 gallon size and I'll put the newest and best in those and the others in the 3's.

Thanks everyone. All suggestions are soooooo welcome!!

Michele, Thank you for shipping our daylilies. Your daylilies look great! I will be very pleased to receive them. Almost every time you post, I learn something new from you. Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge and experiences with all of us.

Doris

Michele,
In a post earlier you said "If I used some of the stuff they use down south my fans would be as fat and big as theirs." What IS "the stuff they use down south"? BAP 5 or 10, Configure, or something else? Is this a trade secret that is supposed to be kept quiet? I emailed a major hybridizer a couple or three years ago concerning BAP, after another hybridizer sort of let the cat out of the bag, and the second hybridizer would not comment on BAP. He said the other one was just using really good fertilizer and water. So, if there's something that makes them grow better, we all would love to get some, assuming it's not so expensive that it's not affordable.
Thanks in advance,
David

Yeap David, Michele is a wonder, full of knowledge and she shares with a smile!!!

Have you tried alfalfa pellets?? It sure gave my plants a huge growth spurt last fall when I used it. I'm pretty sure Michelle uses it too. One bad thing about it. It attracts fungus gnats by the boatload. The pellets go through a fermenting stage and boy do the gnats love it. They don't hurt the grown plants to my knowledge at all. But, they can cause problems on baby seedlings and seeds that are in pots. I have a problem with them in my greenhouse.

I will state for a fact: I had fungus gnats 5 years ago in my greenhouse and there wasn't an alfalfa pellet in my possession. So I had them before I started using alfalfa pellets. I think they are everywhere whether we know it or not. But, with my plants in pots(90%) they swarm around the pots big time.

I'm still using the pellets even though I know they will bring more gnats. I don't care enough to stop using the pellets. They are not hurting my grown plants and the pellets helped my plants to get huge, or I thought so. Let's see if I can show you a photo from last fall.





I just love showing my seedling photos after I started using the pellets. I was amazed at how big they got. I'd say they increased in size maybe 2 - 3 times more than they were to start. I had never had them get nowhere near this big.

Are fungus gnats something only in the south or does the north have them too??? I have never seen one, at least I don't think I have.

Cindy: fungus gnats I believe are in all states. Thay look like small gnats that really don't fly around or if they do it's really short distances, they kind of jump around. They like moist placed to lay their eggs since moisture breeds algae and fungus which is what the fungus gnat larvae feed on and if there happens to be roots around they will feed on them as well. I don't think it's really noticeable on mature plants just seedlings since they really like young tender roots. I have dug up a seedling that looked like it was having problems and it would have no roots whatsoever. The adults are said not to eat although some species will feed on nectar so they cause no damage other than laying their eggs. I have a ton in my outside beds because I use a lot of stuff they like such as manure, milorganite, alfalfa pellets.

taken from this website http://www.hort.uconn.edu/ipm/...

In laboratory studies, adult fungus gnats carried spores of Pythium, Botrytis, Verticillium, Fusarium and Thielaviopsis as they moved from plant to plant. Spores have also been found in their droppings.

Pythium is one of the things that causes rot in daylilies.

I get lots of the little pests here, especially around the daylily bed, maybe because it is full of compost and it is mulched with bark.

Doris, your welcome. I don't think I have vast knowledge at all. I know very little compared to some. Most of what I know is from asking questions and a whole lot of reading. And the rest is trial and error, but I am happy to share what I know so someone else doesn't make some of the same mistakes I made.

Oooh, they sound like bad little creatures. I don't believe I have ever had them here yet. I was going to use alphalfa pellets this year and now I am second guessing that move. I certainly don't want them from the sounds of what they do.

Interesting Michele (thumbs up!)

Raised bed with sand and bark - we knew something was up when we see leeks shipped.

We poor growers in the north with our short seasons can't compete for size, nor increase.

Only thing I'll add is that most all leeks arrive big and then have to convert to northern conditions and get set back a year.

I have tons and tons of them and have only had problems with a few of my seedlings. I just use a systemic insecticide like the Bayer Tree and Shrub (can be used on things other than trees & shrubs) granules or something similar and it takes care of the larvae. The benefits of the alfalfa outweigh the few seedling losses. And I've only lost 2 mature plants to rot and it was because of the weather.

One way to avoid having them ( or as bad) is to let the soil dry out before watering again ( or the top layer of it). That helps keep them at bay and find someplace that's wet to lay the eggs. We water ever other day plus we have really high humidity so everything stays damp around here. When things get hot and dry I don't see them nearly as much.

Hello my name is Karen Pierce. I am new to this forum having been told by one of my kind customers that she had posted something about the plants she received from us; I decided to check out this forum. I see that you all exchange lots of great info and share your Daylily stories which I am sure helps support each other.

However I just wanted to set the record straight about something I saw on this thread regarding what mysteriously happens to plants in the south (Florida) and how some Daylily businesses grow their plants.

I am only speaking for myself and our nursery and I do not know, nor care what others do.

When you buy a plant from us I can assure you that it has not been treated with Bap, growth hormones, or anything more than Peters water-soluble Fertilizer (which is basically the same as miracle grow). Our plants are divided and repotted each year to gain increase we do not use anything else to help that process. When we introduce a plant we will sometimes have to wait 3/4/5 years depending on how it increases before we feel we have sufficient stock to sell.

Our potted stock (which is what is shipped, photo attached from last March) is planted into 3 gal pots with a brand new potting soil mixture each summer – we do not reuse our soil. The soil is a mix of Florida peat, sand, pine bark, we add some lime, Micromax (micro elements) and a handful of slow release fertilizer such as Nurticote . This is done through June/July/August during heat of summer to ensure we weed out any problem plants. Our pots are then put outside under shade cloth; we do not grow anything in a greenhouse. Our plants are larger because we divide and line out each year and we start the process in June/July - not during the cooler months when most do this process. We follow the best horticultural practices to ensure you get great plants.

We water mostly every day for about 10mins each zone through our sprinkler system (we have well over 25 zones on the 4 acreas) or every other day depending on rain and the weather. And sometimes we will put the Peters fertilizer in the Dosatron for one cycle of watering, we do not fertilize everyday, beyond it being extremely expensive, it would be a waste as the plants like humans can only take up so much nutrients.

We move some pots my husband is going to work with into our greenhouse in late January to get bloom a little earlier to hybridize with but I will say that most of our seed is made out in the fields, everyday there is bloom.

I debated about saying something here, I do not want to tread on anyone’s toes or upset anyone. I just want you know the facts. Not everyone deserves to be lumped into a general catagory, in our case it is so far from the reality of hours and hours of hard work we put into the nursery.

We are fortunate to have lots of days of warm sunshine and that is how we grow our daylilies. We spray constantly for pests and disease and try our very best to ensure that you have the highest quality plants available when we ship your order.

I hope you will appreciate my openness; we have provided this same information to many folk who ask and visit with us. We hope you will take the time to come and see us during bloom season.

Kind Regards

Karen Pierce
Floyd Cove Nursery

That's a whole SEA of great looking plants -- wow! Thanks for the explanation... that's more TLC than my DLs are ever likely to get out in the garden, for sure!

I have visited Karen and Guy at Floyd Cove a couple of times and I saw nothing but very healthy plants, absolutely NO rust. I have been a buyer from Floyd Cove for several years and have always gotten large, beautiful plants. Karen is fantastic to work with and I look forward to buying from them for many more years. I got my box of plants from FC this week and was so very pleased, as I always am. I wish I lived close enough to visit their nursery several times during peak bloom season. What stunners they have coming in the next few years. Karen and Guy do most of the work themselves and they really know about hard work, as do most of us on this forum.

Karen, thanks for the very informative post. Good to see you here.

Welcome Karen!!! Thanks for the info.