Zoia's post about counting fans made me wonder when you count your fans. I like doing it in the spring before they get too full and I can see them better.

Spring is when I do it, too.

I like to do them in the fall after trimming back as I put the garden to bed for the winter. Any new spring fans are grown well and I map everything as I go along. It's also a good time to make notes for website updates on plants available. I'm working through my fall to - do list and it looks like counts & maps will be done next week. A project that can be done even if it's chilly and/or the ground is wet. With weekend rain and the temp dropping into the 50's for next week it's looking like perfect timing for that job!

I don't always count fans, but when I do, it has been in the spring. If it is a tight clump, I just put down that it is 20+ or something like that.

I've been counting April and October. It gives me a better map of how each plant is doing in real time. Once they are over 15 fans, they just turn into 'clump' in my list. Of course, some just melt away until they are gone.

I need to get started on redoing my map. Added a few new ones this year, moved some around and lost a few.

The other bonus is discovering plants that never made it to my list here on NGA. Also, I refer to the lists if a marker goes missing or a face plate falls off.

My maps changed a lot this year too after selling, giving away, moving, and adding a few new ones!!

I have been digging and moving plants a few days each week it seems for the past few weeks. I have not been taking fan counts because the plants were in such a weakened state that I am not sure any of them will survive till next year. Also I planted only one, two, three or four fans in each hole, just according to how many fans I had (they are really mostly more like crowns and roots and actual fans). Normally if I think a clump contains more than 10 fans I just mark it down as a clump. I like to take fan counts of plants people are interested in trades for, I like to take fan counts of the plants I replant after digs, and anytime I am replanting normal fans. I would normally get fan counts of the plants in pots, but this year that is not going to happen because I am not sure of many of the plants even be living till next year.

I only count fans when I do the rest of the measuring for scape heights, branching & bud count. [Bloom size is different since that sometimes varies with larger FFO] If it doesn't bloom, I don't count & add to the list for moving or tossing, creating space for something else.

The problem with that is, that sometimes the plant is taking a flower break to add on more fans and I only know that by keeping track of the fans. A lot of my flowers actually did that this year, producing less bloom but growing a bunch.

@Zoia I have also seen daylily clumps stop flowering for a time and during that time they have added new fans more vigorously than during the time that that they were also flowering. It happened to the 'Stella de Oro' (SdO) plants that were grown inside under lights. They would bloom and rebloom repeatedly on average every 60 days. Then after about six to seven months of that they would all stop flowering for about 4-5 months. During that rest from producing scapes they produced more fans, usually multiple new fans per pot. Some of the pots also occasionally produced a new fan during the time that that they were flowering. All the plants were started as single fans in each small 4" pot. All the fans had flowered their last summer outside before being divided and potted.

I checked the growth and flowering pattern with 'Happy Returns' (HR). They were also started with single mature (that is the they had flowered in the summer) fans in 4" pots. Two pots were allowed to set pods on their first scapes. While the pods were developing there were no more scapes and no new fans produced. Within a couple of weeks of the pods maturing those plants produced new fans and scapes and then flowered again very quickly.

I may repeat some of those observations this winter. The SdO and HR plants are still growing in the same pots (since 2019). If I do repeat the observations it will be to check what happens when the size of the pot is larger.

@admmad
Four inch pots seem to be very small, what type of fertilizer schedule do you use for those plants in such small pots.

@Seedfork
According to https://gardenandbloom.com/blo...
a four inch pot holds 473 ml or one pint. My four inch pots are a bit larger [taller] and most hold 750 ml or a little more than a pint and a half.

I used Miracle Gro 24-8-16 soluble fertilizer about once every ten days or so.
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The size of the pots is determined by the size of my plant lights for tests during the winter. There are two light setups and each is 4 x 2.5 feet or 10 square feet of space. The number of pots I can put under the lights is determined by their size (diameter) at the top of the pot. Four inch diameter pots means I can use nine pots for each square foot of lights. I can use 90 pots under each light or 180 pots in total. This year I will be using taller plastic "tree" (4" x 14" - volume listed as 0.8 gallons or 2830 ml or 2.83 litres) pots to give the plants more soil volume (about four times the soil volume). Last year I tried "waterproof" tall square cardboard "pots" but they became unglued at the seams after some months of use.

@Seedfork
Most of those potted SdO have gone dormant but there was one container which had some leafy fans visible. It is listed as 650 ml in size (empty yogurt container), had nine fans that I could see and count, and there were seven scapes present. It is unlikely that the scapes had an average number of buds or that the fans were average widths in size. Plants have what is described as "phenotypic plasticity" meaning that they can adapt to a wide range of environmental conditions (including some of those that are poor) and still mature and flower. One way they can do so is by maturing and flowering at a smaller size.