Seedfork's blog: Just thinking.... 10-07-2016

Well, with the hurricane getting close enough to remind me that they do occasionally strike here, I looked at my cedar trees growing up into the power lines and decided it was time to do something about it. How did I ever let them get so tall? Not long ago they were two feet below the power lines, then at the power lines, now four feet into and above the power lines. I tried calling the power company on several occasions, but they never showed up to trim the trees back, so I decided to take action myself. I worked all morning trimming and hauling limbs. I managed to stand in the back of my pickup and use my pole saw to get a lot of the upper limbs pruned. Still after five hours I had not made much visible progress. I had the tops cut out of three trees, and one tree completely cut down, with a couple of others trimmed up pretty high. But, I can't let them fall to the left because of power lines, and I can't let them fall to the right because of power lines, so I have to be pretty precise in where they fall when I cut them. On the smaller ones I trimmed the tops out of, I can now cut them down with no problem. The really big ones are going to be much harder to cut out the tops because they are so high. Any how about 15 minutes after I finished for the day, the city crew came by and picked up all the debris so that worked out great.
I have set a goal of 200 named cultivars in my daylily collection, plus a few seedlings and NOIDS. The main issue is the 200 named cultivars. I sat down with pen and paper and just off the top of my head made a list of the ones I remembered that did well during the past season and the ones that did poorly. On a few I did go back and look at photos if available to refresh my memory.
By the count in my plant list here on NGA, I have 190 named varieties. I feel sure I can make room for ten more with no problem. So it will be pretty easy for me to reach my 200 number as far as space. But, I don't want just 200 named varieties, I want 200 named varieties that all do well in my garden . So I looked at some that had not done very well, four came to mind right off the bat: 'Emperor Butterfly', 'Jason Mark','Smoky Mountain Autumn' and 'Wineberry Candy'. Three of them were dormants, so I could expect poorer performance to some degree (not that all dormants don't do well here, some do very well) but I knew to expect some not to do well. Of course being a dormant, may not be the reason the plants have not performed well. I realize not every space in the garden is of equal fertility, and they don't get equal moisture. I know the critters are largely responsible for 'Jason Mark' being stunted (but it has never been able to recover). 'Smoky Mountain Autumn' and 'Emperor Butterfly' and 'Wineberry Candy' seemed to have faded away.
So I am thinking about when I finally do get up to my 200 plant goal, I want to start weeding out the poor performers. Then I think I should give them a new chance with a different location, maybe more fertilizer, more or less water....etc.
Also it seems from reading the reports from others, that a daylily might perform well for a year or two, then take off from performing well, for a season or two. I am wondering just how to make the decision of when to replace a daylily? What should be my cutoff point for getting rid of a poor performer, should there be a three out of five year rule (hey... I just thought of that as I was typing). I like it, if a plant does well three out of five years it should be a keeper, if it does poorly three out of five years it should go! Of course that would have to be overall performance: Pretty blooms, lots of blooms, long bloom display period, displays blooms above the foliage, multiples well, resistant to rust, leaf streak and pests (nice looking foliage most of the year). Then there are things like how hard is the plant to divide when necessary, does it send out runners, etc. Of course if a plant blooms extra early or extra late, that is like a bonus credit, if it opens on cool morning or after cold nights and looks good that is a big plus. Oh yeah, a plant should earn bonus points for not leaving behind wet sloppy slimy blooms, and should have points deducted if it does.
Maybe natural attrition will be a great help in getting rid of some plants, then I don't have to make a decision.Somehow in the back of my mind I am thinking that when I do finally reach my goal of two hundred named cultivars it really won't be that hard to select a few to cull.
I think if I set my limit of never more than 205 plants, that will give me time to make a decision. If I go under the two hundred number I am OK with that.

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