As a spokesperson for the Little Ole Ladies club, and having started a LOT of seeds over the last 30 years, I can tell you for certain that the older you get, the more shortcuts you will want!! I found no advantage, Jeff, to starting seeds really early to get earlier bloom. Starting them in January and February worked just fine. But when I lived in Michigan, the lights glowing inside my house and seeing something green growing in the winter helped immensely in getting me thru months of gray months since I suffer from SADS. Seedlings aren't really happy growing under lights for long periods of time and every time you add another step like transplanting them, or having to give them a haircut, or having to battle an infestation of fungus gnats, the more they get set back. So if you start them in small containers and transplant them to larger containers, that is one setback. Transplanting from the larger container to the ground sets them back another 6 weeks. I SERIOUSLY hope you took names of everyone who wants to be you so they can come help ya out at transplant time when they all need to be planted at once!! OMG! You are gonna be BUSY!!!
The real deal in starting seeds super early is there goes your life until they get set out into the ground. So say good bye to that dream vacation in the tropics! Even that long 4 day weekend to the winter symposiums will be difficult when seedlings start getting big and slurp up lots of water daily or you are picking fungus gnats out of your chili in February. No matter when you start them, the crowns STILL have to go thru a winter outside to be mature enough to show their possibilities for those dormant daylilies. To me, the LEAST amount of time they are in containers under lights is better...only transplanting once directly into the ground and then putting a row cover over them is more desirable. Daylilies can develop their roots much more quickly in cool ground than under lights IMHO. That's why Rob's milk jug method develops such strong plants...and it skips all those extra steps that set plants back. And they are automatically hardened off which can be a real adventure in itself when you live in Zone 4 or 5 and have 100 or so flats that may need to be "carried in" and "carried out".
It's fun to experiment and I've done my fair share of that. I did not like winter sowing....deer went thru my garden during a thaw and stomped a lot of seeds all the way to China never to be seen again. Torrential rains prior to germination washed seeds away from markers...the dreaded Unknown x Unknown now that serious hybridizers are reluctant to buy. What works for you may not work for the next person so each of you will have to find what works for you and your climate factoring in the other things in you life...like your real job, the vacations you want to take, how you want to spend your time, the amount you want to pay for your electric bill, how well the other people in your life can tolerate your winter hobby, etc.
