I am throwing this out here to my friends:

My coworker lives in a condo but is able to garden alongside her end unit. She had beautiful and well cared for perennials, with a lot of daylilies.

She and her husband are having a screened porch built, and she has had to dig up all her daylilies. They are currently waiting around to be replanted.

But, a month ago, she purchased more daylilies at the Local daylily sale, and they have been sitting in her garage, just in the plasitc bag she carried them home in. She has allowed daylilies and iris to sit like that for periods of time, bare rooted, without problems, and now wonders if she can leave these daylilies in an insulated garage (doesn't freeze, but not hot) all winter & just plant them in the spring. She did purchase these before they made the decision to tear the old porch off & rebuild a bigger one.

Any thoughts? I told her no "pot planting" of them up here, because I lost all of mine last winter doing that, although if she chooses to do that, I will warn her to tip those pots on their side when things start to warm up. I tried overwintering some of mine last year in my unheated but insulated garage and had all sorts of problems, from rust to aphids, to everything in between before I tossed them outside & lost them this spring, with the warm up then freezing temps, so at least in south central Wisconsin, I do not recommend that.

But leaving them barerooted? I have no clue if they would survive.

Any thoughts, ideas? Thanks everyone! ~Jan

Well the big box stores sell the daylilies in bags that are in just a little bit of peat (or whatever) bare root and they obviously go dormant and who knows how long they are like that. So they probably would fair ok, but I really don't know.

No idea - I am like you Jan. I pot them up and protect from the elements, pray alot, and get them in the sunshine in the spring, more praying, then hopefully plant in May/June!!

No idea either. I have never overwintered daylilies that were not already planted. If it were me, I would go ahead and plant them and mulch heavily.

Jan I have left mine in pots outside and never lost one of them. I have also brought my evergreens ones in and put them in my unheated sunroom
Never lost the plant or had any kind of bug. I have left them sitting on the ground outside in winter and never lost one.
And they have all bloomed the following spring. But I did put mulch in my pots. Now I would think she could pot them up
and plant the whole thing in the ground and put mulch over them. I know I received some daylilies too early and hemlady told me to put them in my refrigerator and I did that
and planted them when spring came. Three of them bloomed that summer so it might work to leave them in the garage in bags.
Or pot them up put on the side of the house and pile leaves or mulch around them.And I live further up in michigan then hemlady.


p.s. I sure can be long winded when i dont talk for awhile

I think what killed my daylilies was because of the month of 70 degree weather in March, then the sub freezing temps in April. I lost every single one of those potted daylilies. And they were in kitty litter bins, with excellent drainage (holes drilled in the bottom with a layer of gravel) So the "pots" were big enough.

When I threw them outside, I put them in a well protected place and mulched them well.

I have overwintered plenty of plants in my garage previously, from geraniums to this last winter, parsley and basil. No problems with any of my other plants with rust and aphids, but the daylilies were hit hard.

Thanks for the info and suggestions, I will let my friend know! ~Jan

I'm also moving my daylilies to a new location. Could I dig now and place bareroot in the refrigerator until spring? ::

@EllenLindbla,
You replied to a 2012 thread. So you might not get many replies. I will try to bump it up a bit. I have ordered plants from G.H. Wild and they said the plants were stored in a refrigerated condition. Now I don't know if that was actually in a large cooler without light or how if any moisture was supplied. I do know there was very little foliage but a good root system on the plants, and they grew like weeds in the spring and I think nearly all of them bloomed that season. You might send them an email and ask how they store them in a cooler?

I'd be curious to know also!