Has anyone in a Northern state tried direct sowing in late summer or early fall? It should give time for the seeds to germinate, but I wonder how a small seedling would handle a cold winter. I am curious if any of you have tried this, and your results.

Thanks,
Gale

I planted in Sept. Last year. Did not keep track of germination. My post is on "how are your seedlings doing". There were no problems. Just planted the babies in June. They look good. Will post pictures and see how they look next to Sue's in WI who planted inside in the winter.

@BillAlleysDLs, I read your post, Louise. I would like to do what you did with my seeds this year. It is just too much trouble growing them indoors during the winter. Can I ask what month in spring did the seeds begin germinating and growing for you? How big were the pots that you used to sow the seeds? Did you get any seeds that germinated before the winter?

Louise, I am curious to know if the seeds germinated before winter sit in? I too am in a Northern state and my first seedlings took 2 to 3 years to bloom, however, last year I direct sowed seeds were they would get high doses of Nitrogen to see if that would quicken blooming. This year almost half of them bloomed as one-year-old seedlings, so it did seem to work, but only have had one year of experience, so can't say with certainty, but I do believe Nitrogen can greatly improve how quick Daylies mature and multiply, as well as, rebloom and quantity of blooms. Amount of water seems almost equal in importance. If you want to see bloom quicker, I would use a high N slow release fertilizer, and give plants ample water. By the way, the plants I purchased from you have done great, thank you again.

Gale

Karen, I planted in 6"pots with up to about 25 seeds per pot. All germinated in April; nothing in the Fall. I mulched with pine needles after the ground froze.
Gale, I also have been giving these babies 3-4 doses of alfalfa meal, sprinkles of epson salts and lots of milorganite plus an 1" of water weekly in hopes of encouraging growth. This is today's pics. The ruler is 12". A couple have 2 fans starting.
Being old and looking for easy this seems to be working? I'm going to tree mail Sue to see how her plants started in the winter compare. I've heard Curt Hanson in Ohio starts his seedlings this way? Your's planted in the fall of 14 bloomed some this year? That's impressive!

I'm a little mixed up. Someone asked about direct-sowing in the fall, but I can't really tell from the replies if anyone who responded actually direct-sows. I do see a couple of replies which seem to be about fall-sowing, in pots, but that's a different animal.

I've direct-sown before, but on a very small scale, and my winter isn't much to speak of. The germination was almost all in the early spring, and weed competition makes it a real chore to deal with.

Curt explains the details of his sowing method in the All Things Plants podcast #52. It's well worth listening to.

Any proportion of daylily seeds that have seed dormancy will likely not germinate before winter. Decades ago they were, apparently, typically sown in fall but germinated in spring, hence the early studies on daylily seed stratification. If the seeds do not have seed dormancy, or that dormancy has been broken by damp chilling in the fridge, then they most likely will germinate before winter if sown in fall. In other words what they will do depends on their dormancy status before planting in fall.

Thanks to everyone for the info, perhaps I will try a few and see how it works out.

I did direct sow in the fall many years ago and did not have the greatest germination, so I no longer do it.

BillAlleysDLs said:I planted in Sept. Last year. Did not keep track of germination. My post is on "how are your seedlings doing". There were no problems. Just planted the babies in June. They look good. Will post pictures and see how they look next to Sue's in WI who planted inside in the winter.

Here is a picture of seedlings that I planted indoors (Feb - March of 2016) and planted outdoors in June 2016. Picture was taken May 28th 2017. I'm in zone 4-5. Kind of right on the line of 4/5 I think.

Those look so healthy and green, love the photo. It looks like you have a lot to look forward to.

I SURE do. I hope I don't run into too much trouble because I planted them so close together.

I'm SOOOOO EXCITED !!!! I found 33 scapes in the seedling bed today.

petruske said:I SURE do. I hope I don't run into too much trouble because I planted them so close together.

@petruske How closely did you plant them?

The rows are 8" apart and fans within the rows are about 4" apart. I thought I'd maybe lose some of them over the winter but very very few were lost. In fact there was a surprising amount of increase on many fans. That shocked me. Never expected that from a fan that started from seed a little over a year ago.

I counted scapes again today and now I see 72 of them.

72 scapes, yay!

Your seedlings look marvelous, Sue.

My seedlings are planted in a grid in raised beds, each seedling in a 6" x 6" square. (The grid is for drip irrigation.) That 6" spacing in any direction is not too close, and most seedlings will bloom, provided there aren't any weaklings that get swamped/shadowed by bigger neighbors. Out of 3 beds, the only one we are having issues with is half of one bed (also two edges), where first a critter chewed the irrigation line, then when that got fixed, we had another leak elsewhere.

That said, I'd be nervous about the 4" apart planting, simply because your seedlings WILL propagate, and then you might have issues figuring out which fans go with which seedling. I had one seedling go from one fan last season, to five fans this season, and it's crowding the drip grid enclosing it. We'll be digging in September or October; hopefully it will stay contained in its 6" x 6" square until we do dig.

Yes, I agree, I'm sure I'll have difficulties with the spacing. I too have some that went from one fan to 3 and 4 fans. Maybe THOSE are the ones I should try to move FIRST since they are proving to be the aggressive ones.

I have only myself to blame. Everyone here at garden.org gave good advice for spacing but I had so many seedlings I didn't listen. I shouldn't have germinated so many, but it was SO MUCH FUN I got carried away.

I'm anxious to count the scapes again today. It's going to be an exciting year in the garden.

I direct sow around Thanksgiving time here. Last year I didn't get around to sowing them until December and had great germination still.

-Cory