I planted about 60 or so 2ft apart and I am wondering if I should have planted them slightly closer? I am really having a problem w weeds taking over and of course until these get to be mature clumps, they won't hold down the weeds. But I'm wondering if I should have scrunched them in more? Most of them are large varieties, Photon Torpedo, Wispy Rarys, Cleo ect.

I think two feet is just about right. I planted the daylilies in my new beds 18" apart and that is fine for small and medium size plants most of the time if they don't multiply too rapidly. But for the large plants 2 feet is better, there are some plants that just have extra large foliage and 30 inches is better for them: Winged Migration,
Northern Bright Eyes, and Crimson Beacon are three I can think of off hand that need a lot of room in my garden.

I don't want my clumps to grow together. That way, if I want to dig a particular cultivar I know I'm not getting any others mixed in. I think 2 feet is a good distance. I have weeds too and just try to keep them pulled. Unfortunately, it is a big job.

I think pine straw is a good weed suppressor.

Seedfork said: I think pine straw is a good weed suppressor.

thank you , I might try that! was thinking of cardboard but it looks so unsightly.

You could use cardboard and put mulch on top.

I agree with Larry about the pine straw, though. People around here buy it in bales, but I just use the free stuff my trees provide in large quantities.

In my perennial beds I try to space minimum of 24 inches, seedling beds 12 inches.
As for weed control in perennial beds , had great success with double ground wood chips, by the time the plants have multiplied enough to need dividing,
the wood have broken down to wonderful soil. I do fertilize with nitrogen fertilizer, and leaf mold. No problem with nitrogen tie up.
Seedling beds are mulched heavily with ground leaves.

I concur with the 2-foot spacing. And weeds can be just nuts! There are some weeds that become the hugest pain once they get going, even when the DLs are mulched pretty well. I have seen weeds snake up through 4 inches of mulch, from seed. That's where cardboard under the mulch is helpful, I guess. And violets, once they get in with the daylily crowns...

After digesting that several of the folks who grow large plantings of DLs use pre-emergent herbicide, I just applied Snapshot to my main area. Had mechanically removed what germinated in the fall and winter. There were too many weed and grass seeds self-sown and poised to grow for me to manage otherwise this time. Former rough pastureland! Hated to do it, but rampant weeds aren't cool. Will still have to deal with rooty and rhizomey weeds but maybe not as many thistles and new clover. In my heart, I'm an organic gardener but in practice, large plantings call for a variety of tools when one is an army of one.

Showing my age I was going to suggest newspaper to suppress the weeds, but then I remembered that the internet/computers put a stake in the heart of that one. However, If you have a paper shredder, the shreds are great for that, too. You could also use thick plastic sheeting. The black kind warms the soil and suppresses the weeds. If you use plastic do not forget to poke some holes in the lower areas so the rain can seep into the soil.

@Hembrain well now when you said violets inside the daylilies, I know you know what I am talking about. My place is out of town and sat empty for years before we bought it and before that it was a rental for some time and the yard has never been cared for. There is no 'lawn', it is just one weed or the other and the grass we do have is bermuda. I hate it, the roots are hard like wood, break off if you try to pull them, they are invasive like crazy and I have not found a way to be rid of it. I have quack grass, and goose grass and I battle white clover something fierce. Even a tiny piece grows right back. I have all but given up on my iris as the weeds are so bad, I have to dig up the iris to get the weeds out of between it, and then by the time it is established enough to bloom again, the weeds are thick, I just can't keep them up it is so bad. I do use preen but find it has no effect really on violets or some of the other weeds, I suspect of course the grasses and clover are not sprouting as seeds, but rather are roots always established. I have to admit that the beds with thicker plantings do have less weeds, but so hard to keep it up if you are starting out with new baby plants. Starting anything from seed is entirely laughable, you'll see it Anything from seed has to be started in a cup and transplanted out later. Now I do have a few raised beds and seeds start better there for me. I have never used mulch as in wood chips because it draws termites so bad, serious issues here w that, and also they tend to wash/float away in our heavy rains, they get over the crowns or smother my iris and then the daylilies rot if I don't' go out there and tediously rake back each one trying not to damage it.

Honestly, if you have enough room, consider 30-36" centers on any daylilies not registered as small or miniature. On small and miniatures, which I plant according to height in several beds, they can be planted closer together with this caveat: Not all daylilies that have miniature sized blooms will have miniature sized foliage. Some with tiny blooms will have big vigorous foliage, and others will have dwarf sized foliage to correspond to the tiny blooms. Depending on foliage size, some really tiny ones can be planted on 12-18" centers, but those with regular sized foliage need to be 24" centers. I'm all the time moving plants around in the mini area, because some grow much larger than expected.


I took a few pics just yesterday while in discussion with someone about this. The first three pics are all miniatures which have small foliage and stay tiny. Even so, I will need to move Boogie Woogie Blues this fall, because plants are too close.




Last pic is one bed of small and miniatures. I moved at least a dozen plants around and took several out to give them more room last fall. The bulbs make it look more crowded now, but these will be fairly well spaced this summer.

I envy your grass

Maybe spray with roundup to get the weeds under control then mulch. Sod is soo expensive now. I think centipede is about the cheapest decent lawn grass around here, but not much good in the shade. But, at least it can be seed sown if needed. I think you have to wait at least two weeks after using roundup before you can sow seed.

well with the bermuda I have so prevalent here I feel it will choke out anything different I try.
I hate that it is a warm season grass, a good deal of the year it is brown and looks dead.

@Frillylilly, you have a really challenging situation on your hands! It can be transformed, but it sounds like a lot of work. To borrow an expression: you are working on what has been spoiled, but you can have supreme success.

One can kill Bermudagrass with Roundup most effectively in fall when the carbs are moving from leaf to stolons/roots for winter storage, although any time the leaves are green, one can have partial success. One year, I Roundupped in Sept/Oct to create flower beds and was surprised by how totally it worked on old bermuda lawn. But then... if one doesn't have buried edging or a physical barrier, it just creeps back, superficially and underground. Where I used 8" hammer-in edging, it stayed out of the beds and where I didn't... well... not so good. Bermudagrass is really hard to deal with once it's involved with plants. That's a whole different story.

I have read that you can use large sheets of cardboard covered with several inches of compost, topsoil, or mulch to kill large areas of weeds or grass. One thing they all say is to cover any cracks or folds in the cardboard with extra small pieces of cardboard. You need a lot and need to hoard the cardboard for awhile before trying it. The cardboard will break down over the course of a growing season, but supposedly by that time, the weeds and grass underneath will be dead. Of course if you are treating your entire yard, this probably wouldn't be feasible.

I have not done this before but I always wanted to try it.

I agree with Kenny Shively, either use ground up wood bark, ground leaves or pine bark mulch which will suppress the weeds, those are your best bets. Spacing can vary from 18 to 24 inches.
Good planting,
Jackky

I have heard that oak leaves, in particular, have natural germination-inhibitors before they break down, and that's been my experience as well. I't hard to get enough of them. I used to have a huge leaf pile and would raid it in the spring to use as mulch. One can sort of "tile" with slabs of damp, partially-decomposed hardwood leaves. It is thicker and stays in place better than fresh or mulch-chopped leaves. Amazingly effective for nutrients and week-suppression if one does it every spring. Some weed seeds will be germinating in the fall, but they aren't too hard to pull in that situation.

Based on personal experience (Z5b probably - Ontario) .... Several sheets - 4-6 or more - of newsprint (I still read my dailies) .... or a couple of layers of corrugated-cardboard ... or 2-4 layers of craft-board (Cereal boxes, etc.) will ALL work when covered also with an ample layer or so of compost or manures or animal-bedding or soil or lawn clippings or yard debris or wood-chips/mulch. Combinations of these will also work. Should you be working with display beds then that will guide your degree of 'neatness' (NOT something I'm particularly concerned about. I just want the end result.) Also, there are decades old references to/for 'Lasagna Gardening' (GOOGLE same for current videos) .... Some are really about soil building more so than simple 'killing of lawn & weeds'. I have used these various methods to kill off weeds, existing lawn and rampant invasive vinca minor.
Bottom-line is to deprive the plant-life you want to kill of sunlight for a season & you'll (usually) have bare soils again to work with. BUT, those unwanted weeds & local grasses will eventually return - sometimes within a season ....

A couple of suggestions... first, I learned a very simple method years ago to eliminate unwanted / wild thistles (bull thistles are wild here in the Adirondacks): wait until the flower is in bloom, then cut the stalk - the plant is sending so much sap and energy to the bloom, it will 'bleed' to death. - Not sure you will have the same success in other regions with "bloomin' weeds" but it might be worth trying.

Secondly, layered corrugated cardboard works. I actually get cardboard from a local hardware store, they have to cut the boxes down and flatten them for (mandatory) recycling anyways, and they love it when I take it off their hands so they don't have to haul it to the recycle station.

FYI, if you are using this as a no-till method, it will kill off the grasses and weeds ... occluding the sunlight will block weed seeds from sprouting and prevent most weeds from growing... and cardboard, unlike plastic, allows moisture to penetrate and does break down into healthy soil (earthworms eat it, BTW). I layer the cardboard, wet it down with a garden hose (helps keep the wind from moving it around before covering it with compost or mulch).

I also get free compost from the local recycle center... and have a very large pine for pine straw, so am more fortunate than some. One note: if you are using the cardboard to kill grasses / weeds to create garden beds, particularly for any edible foods... stick to cardboard with black ink ... 'not' colour inks. Black ink was changed to a soy base more than twenty years ago, no toxic chemicals. (The colour inks are not safe for food to be grown in the beds.)

And if you have time, can plan that far ahead, lay the cardboard at the end of your season, cover it and let it winter over... by spring, you have great planting beds... even in zone 3, the cardboard will break down over winter.