Yesterday, I made the long, long trip across state to a favorite daylily farm, bought some daylilies I had been looking forward to, and got home too late to get them potted. When I went out earlier today to work on them, I face-planted on the patio and ripped open my knee and hand.
I did manage to get them into buckets of water before I limped back into the house (I don't usually soak them), but I have no idea how long I can leave them in the buckets before I have to get them into dirt.
Will they be okay if I can't get back out there until tomorrow? Or the next day? I really don't want to lose them, because I really don't want to do another road trip up north, but I seriously doubt that I will get them planted today.

Advice would be deeply appreciated.

Oh my! You and your health are more important than your daylilies but rest assured that your daylilies can soak for days (even weeks) as long as you are soaking just the roots and the water is kept clean. Get wel!!!

Jillz said:Oh my! You and your health are more important than your daylilies but rest assured that your daylilies can soak for days (even weeks) as long as you are soaking just the roots and the water is kept clean. Get wel!!!

Thank you!! I'm so relieved! As I said, I don't normally soak them, so I had no idea that they could stay in water that long.
I'm assuming "clean" means changing the water every day?

You just don't want the water to get slimy and icky. Depending on the conditions I would think that every day would not be required. I know some people who add a little bit of bleach to the water to keep it clean but I have never done that.

Jillz said:You just don't want the water to get slimy and icky. Depending on the conditions I would think that every day would not be required. I know some people who add a little bit of bleach to the water to keep it clean but I have never done that.

Thanks again! I'm thinking a little Superthrive wouldn't hurt, either.

I stuck a bonus plant in a bucket of water as it had a scape and I wanted to see if it was worth keeping. That was several weeks ago. It is still in the water and still flowering! I think it is Calico Jack and as I decided not to keep it just left it in the water!

You can't kill daylilies that easy! Hope you heal up real quick.

Unfortunately it is possible to lose daylilies in water. During the spring shipping season as all my plants came in, I ended up in the ICU. With hot weather, the water ended up getting stagnant and I lost at least 5 of my cultivars including Purple Cheetah and probably Lavender Feathers ( heartsick). I'll reorder as I can.

Sorry to hear you lost 5 daylilies, two that are shown to be very beautiful daylilies by the photos in the database. How long did they end up staying in the water and how hot would you estimate the average temps to be during that period? About how deep were the plants sitting in the water?

I know most of us have done it and got away with it, but a potential risk of sitting in water for a while is the (theoretical at least) transfer of rot-causing organisms that can "swim" in water from one plant to another, the so-called "water molds".

The safest bet is probably to "park" plants in a tub of dampened potting mix or sand until they can be planted in their permanent position. Not necessarily much easier after a face-planting than actually planting them in the ground, though. Mystlw hope you feel better soon.

With care, (if you can call this "care") a strong, hardy daylily can live in water for a long time. I've held some for two years in a bucket. On a lark, I've set and harvested a couple of pods from one of them.

A few tips for an extended stay in water;
They need good light. Shade will weaken the plant.
I use enough water to just cover the roots.
The water should be kept as cool as possible, so staging is important. (Bucket shaded, leaves getting strong light).
A little food occasionally is good. I use a weak hydroponic (complete) liquid fertilizer* and add a Cal-Mag supplement, because most fertilizers don't contain calcium.
Weekly water changes, maybe every three days, depending.

The roots will develop oddly, the larger tuberous roots will eventually rot, and, if you leave them for longer than a month you will lose a few, but the hardy, healthy plants will survive. When it's time to plant a daylily that's been in water long enough to affect the roots, it's in a fragile state, so give it a spell in a spot with mid-day shade until it starts to show new growth. That's usually a sign that new roots are growing.They'll not be as strong as if you had just planted them on arrival, but sometimes we do what we have to do. Everything is a compromise.

My favorite method for holding new arrivals is to heel them in or pot them up using fine landscape bark. Or you can sit the plants on the ground and cover the roots with the bark. Bark is far cheaper than potting mixes, and actually seems to grow daylilies better. You should see the roots on daylilies grown in bark.

It's also just as easy to add bark to that same bucket when you put the plants in it. Fill it with water afterward to thoroughly wet the bark, then tip to drain. Feed as above. Some of the healthiest looking plants I grow were potted up using nothing but bark.

*My fertilizer of choice is Dyna-Gro Foliage-Pro 9-3-6

Great tips, Ken, especially about the bark. I really like the idea of adding the bark to the bucket!

I have set newly arrived daylilies directly on the soil around my compost heap, and then sifted freshly dug compost over them to hold them. I did this with some daylilies that I dug for a friend a few years ago. The friend never came to pick them up and they are happily growing there now, just like they had been planted.

Larry,

I consider myself lucky to have lost only the 5. I had close to 50 all together. The temps spiked to the 90s and I was laid up for 3 weeks without the ability to change the water. When I did finally get to them, you could smell the rotten vegetation. The ones that did survive came through well, but the ones who didn't just rotted away.

Thanks, I think that will give others some guidance in what to expect when putting daylilies in water and just letting them sit in high temps.

I once dug a clump of daylilies and put the clump in the shallows of our pond. That was in the spring or summer of one year. They lived through that winter and all the next growing season in the shallows (the water level in the pond naturally rises and falls over the spring-summer-autumn almost a foot. After the next winter I forgot about them. A few winters later when I remembered them they were completely gone. I think our muskrats eventually found them and had them for lunch