Maurice - You are totally correct about the Oak tree competing with my daylilies. The daylilies get plenty of sun. But, I checked around the soil first thing this morning. I was hoping that the tap root and small feeder roots would not be up around the surface of the soil .... but it appears they are. There are so many small roots through that daylily bed that I am going to have to cut through them to get my daylilies out. (sigh)
Most of my backyard is not laid out for daylilies, apparently. Even raised beds 10-15 feet away from any shrubs or trees, eventually finds that the shrub/tree roots make it to my daylily garden. But that takes a much longer time than just 6 months like those daylilies beds right next to the Oak Tree. I keep wondering if there is something I could put down in a garden bed to prevent those roots from infiltrating my daylily and other garden beds. Only other trees and shrubs seem to be able hold their own against these larger trees. The trees stay because they provide a habitat for wildlife and shade for my house at times during the day. So the daylilies will have to be moved.
I asked about the small seedlings producing pods because I did set pods on most of my seedlings and harvested seeds from them. Some pods had a lot of seeds and some had only a couple. I did not pay attention to the number of seeds vs. the size of the seedling plant.
I had read that it is best to cut off scapes when dividing and transplanting daylilies. I didn't know if that were true or not? Having such small seedlings this Spring, I have since lost a few of them and I am wondering if it was because of the seed pods. Even other seedlings that are still alive after I harvested seeds from them are still not producing any additional fans. They remain at a single fan. So it seemed like the seed production had an adverse affect on the pod parent plants. Possibly to the point that it exhausted the plant to death? I dug around in the dirt where they were planted and found remains of decomposing roots. So the plant actually did die. While others around them are doing fine. Maybe still at a single fan, but not dead. The plants that disappeared were randomly throughout the raised bed. Not all together, but one here and one there, etc. so I don't know or even think that it was something in the soil. Maybe the genetics of the plant were just weak?
