I have used empty plastic kitty litter bins with holes drilled in the bottom and a layer of gravel as pots. The daylilies sure love them!

Last summer I had some evergreens, and since I am pretty new with the daylily stuff (the addiction only took a month or two, I swear!) I put them into what I thought was a temporary pot ghetto. The garden I planned to have landscaped, along the sunny southern side of my house, was where I wanted to plant them. Only problem was that life occurred, and the massive evergreens didn't get pulled, and the landscaping never got done (it's on a slope).

No problem I thought, I have successfully overwintered plants in my insulated garage, so I popped them in there.

Where they got rust, then aphids, then goodness knows what else.

So I tossed the pot ghetto outside in a protected area.

I believe if we had had a normal winter & spring, things might have survived. But we didn't. It was warmer than usual, with a March heat wave. Then spring returned with frigid wet weather in April.

And I lost everything.

What I have learned here on the forum was that I should have turned those pots on their side, at least toward the end of winter - even though my pots have good drainage. The weather didn't help my in ground daylilies, I lost several of those - but not many, and managed to save a couple too.

No matter, I will never overwinter daylilies in pots up here in Wisconsin again. Meanwhile, all the other plants I overwintered in my garage did well. I was still harvesting parsley in May from the previous year, and my basil lasted until December.

This year I have more daylilies in pots, they love those bins - and they WILL get planted hopefully this weekend into the ground.

I think pot growing is better the higher the zone one lives to a certain extent. But for temporary homes, they can work well up here, even those kitty litter biins ~JAn

Thanks for all your comments everyone.

Susan, the daylily you asked about is Ocean Rainbow. I have it for sale on the Lilyauction right now. It closes on Sunday.

Ocean Rainbow, the second picture is on rebloom.


Dot

Jan, I can't imagine trying to overwinter my daylilies in a more northerly climate. Two thumbs up for trying at least. Some of what you mentioned has happened to my daylilies while overwintering in my garage which is why failure can be such a great teacher. I have learned not to bring daylilies into the garage until they are dormant (no green foliage showing) and only if it is really necessary. We seldom have prolonged cold spells (single digits), but the smaller pots (8 inches or less) must have more protection then the larger ones when the really frigid temperatures roll in. Once in the garage, I might think about a little spritz of water every couple of weeks or so, but since the roots are mostly dormant, the point is just to keep them from drying out totally. With the first false spring things get interesting. I have learned from hard experience not to let my daylilies grow new foliage inside the protected environment of the garage. It's always kind of weak and spindly and never really recovers the rest of the year. The garage is not a greenhouse. Rather when the new growth starts to sprout I haul the plants out of the garage during the day when the temperatures are warmer and back in at night when they drop again. A pain? Yes, but so are alot of things in the gardening world.....I've seen a couple of people mention using their own dirt from the garden. I just have to tell you my experience would be to never do that. It was a surprise to us a few years ago to find a patch of garden soil badly infested with nemotodes. We also have experienced soil that has suffered from the crown gall bacterium, the water born pathogen Phytophthora, Verticillium wilt and who knows what else that will pop up in the future. You do what seems best to you of course, but you pays your dime and you takes your chances......Dot, I must say again that your pot garden is an inspiration. Rather off topic to this subject, but I seem to remember you saying that you like "Can't Touch This" more then "Parrots of the Caribbean". Seeing your picture of CTT reminded me to ask you if that still holds true and why......Maryl

Thanks Dot, why did it look red in the other picture and purple in this one? Dot, got my order from Maryott's and my friends helped me plant 70 daylilies yesterday.
I am pretty much done, I need to finish my butterfly garden and rearrange some Hostas.

Susan are you talking about this one? If so it's Can't Touch This (Nicole Devito)

[quote="Ladylovingdove"] to

Yes! Thank you Michelle.

Virginia, your question confused me. I thought you were asking about this picture. Here it is again with two views and the names.

In the front is Can't Touch This (Nicole Devito 2012), directly behind it is Pirate Moon (Trimmer 2012), behind and the upper left is the one I thought you were talking about is Ocean Rainbow (G Pierce 2012) and the upper right is Dragonfly Dawn (Trimmer 2012). I hope this helps with the confusion.



I'm happy you got your order from Maryotts planted, whew that was a lot to plant at once.

Mary,

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite after this year. Pirates of the Caribbean will always be a favorite of mine. Can't Touch This was awesome this year for a first year plant and so was Dragonfly Dawn. I guess it would depend on how much money you want to spend. CTT is still very expensive and POTC isn't so much. BUT with that said orange is my favorite color lol. I'm so confused now. I couldn't choose if I had to pick only one, thats why I have so many now. I really need to think about this more. Maybe I could pick my ten favorites, maybe.

Dot

Dot, where do you get your pots. I have about 16 pots that size that I save for my favorites. I forage them from landscapers when I see them planting.

The black tree size pots I got from a neighbor who does fences, mowing and landscaping.
My neighbor knows to save those for me. He also has given me bunches of the 3 gallon size, I won't run out of those anytime soon.

When I needed a bunch more this spring I got some from Walmart, 20" size. You can go to Walmart.com and look at them. They are the Bombay planters.

Dot

I am so surprised that they flower that well in pots. Wonders never cease do they

Dot: Thanks for the reply on Can't Touch This versus Parrots of the Caribbean. They both look like the same color combination to me with a base color of yellow not orange. You mentioned orange in your reply. Am I missing something when looking at the pictures?.........Maryl

Ladylovingdove said:Virginia, your question confused me. I thought you were asking about this picture. Here it is again with two views and the names.

In the front is Can't Touch This (Nicole Devito 2012), directly behind it is Pirate Moon (Trimmer 2012), behind and the upper left is the one I thought you were talking about is Ocean Rainbow (G Pierce 2012) and the upper right is Dragonfly Dawn (Trimmer 2012). I hope this helps with the confusion.



I'm happy you got your order from Maryotts planted, whew that was a lot to plant at once.

Mary,

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite after this year. Pirates of the Caribbean will always be a favorite of mine. Can't Touch This was awesome this year for a first year plant and so was Dragonfly Dawn. I guess it would depend on how much money you want to spend. CTT is still very expensive and POTC isn't so much. BUT with that said orange is my favorite color lol. I'm so confused now. I couldn't choose if I had to pick only one, thats why I have so many now. I really need to think about this more. Maybe I could pick my ten favorites, maybe.

Dot

OMG, I did not notice 'Ocean Rainbow' before, that is beautiful.
How much does 'Ocean Rainbow' sell for?? I can't find it in the AHS data base.

Ocean Rainbow goes for 150$. It is a guy pierce intro from this year. Go to Floyd Cove to see it.

Just checked the LA and someone got a DF for 50$. Just put in your want list and they will notify you when someone list another one.

150 is a bit high, I will wait a few. What's a DF?

Susan, DF stands for Double Fan - two pieces of crown with roots that are most often connected together, although some sellers will send two individual single fans.

Here is a link to what a Fan is.

http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

OK, I get it. Someone on LA got a DF of OR for 50.00! Not bad.

LOLOL Yea!!!!! Glad you got it despite my abbreviation . Sorry about that.

No worries! It was fun.

What about overwintering seedlings (4-8 inch pots) in the garage at around 50-degrees all winter, with a plant grow light? I'm trying to figure out a way to 1) avoid seedlings being out in the full-on winter temps that can go down to 25-degrees for a couple weeks, and 2) keep them growing so that I might see blooms earlier than the 2-3 year estimate.

One option (fading fast) is a rickety wood-and-clear-paneled 'patio greenhouse' which I think would not provide them any real buffer of warmth (and who knows what happens when the winds get stormy on it). The other option is garage-and-grow lights (or inside-and-grow lights...but I don't like the purple glow in the house, if I can avoid it).

Anyone have more details about seedlings in pots with grow-lights and time to first bloom?

Hi Tina: No, it's been my experience that grow lights don't emit enough light to do anything other then encourage that weak spindly growth I talked about. I have grow lights both in the house and inside the garage, and I've been doing this grow light thing for going on 30 years. My African Violets do fine under grow lights, but they are shade plants. Daylilies are not shade plants.....Again, this is just my experience so mileage may vary, but last year when we had that warm winter, I left all my pots outside and lost nary a one. Evan the 8 inch pots did just fine. Although warmer then usual, last year our lows were usually below your 25 degrees (down to 18 degrees or so for awhile) and still no problems. I have learned from experience that it's best to move my daylily pots to the west side of my house and get them as close to the stone exterior of the house (for radiated heat) as possible (they need to be out of the north wind too). I also group the pots together, putting the smaller pots in the middle of the larger pots. I imagine you could do it on the south side of the house as well, but the east side and north side are not really good for small pots over winter. As for the 4 inch pots, I think it would be a gamble to let them stay outdoors all winter. If you can get them to go dormant first, then bring them in when it drops down into the mid to low 20's that would be optimal. Again, people can do what they want, but I wouldn't be encouraging any new growth to sprout while in the garage with grow lights...Just an observation, but have you seen those bagged daylilies the mart stores carry? They certainly don't get any light and they survive bare root for quite a while in the unfriendly environment of the stores. Daylilies are pretty touch plants if they have survived my experiments....Hope this helped....Maryl