If a "root nodule" breaks off...can you plant it and make a new plant?
I have two of these broken roots and want to plant them not throw away...
Do you get a plant if you do this? They are like 3 inches long..just root....

Hello Trudy, There is and argument on this subject right now going on at the Day lily forum Garden web , This person swears he has done it over and over and the majority say it cant be done. I've often wondered if you can take a rhizome with roots and planted if it would grow into a plant.

Well, isn't that interesting!
Thank you very much!
I decided I have nothing to lose and I planted them with just the cut at the surface of the soil.
I'll let you know what happens!

Thank you for the word rhizome...I knew there was a better word than nodule.

I kniw you can split the crown into quarters, put rooting hormone on and it is supposed to work ... Giving you four fans out of one, but I have never tried it. I have rooted a broken off crown. But never had any grow from broken roots.

I would have to say that you will not get a plant from these roots. I have dug up many daylilies and the roots have been cut and left behind just because I have no idea where they are when digging or these may be seedlings I'm getting rid of and don't care if they roots get cut or not. I would think if you could grow them from these roots then I would have more daylilies than I could handle. And I would think that more people (hybridizers) would be doing this to get more plants faster to introduce.
Now on the off chance that a piece of the crown is left attached to these pieces of roots then you get a 50/50 chance that a new plant will grow. It's not the root that produces a new plant, but the crown. That's why if you break a fan off and there is any piece of crown left on it it can grow more roots and grow into a new plant and new fans will grow from the crown where the fan was broken off from. Now a lot of times these broken fans and crowns will rot and die first, but I have seen this done time and time again and they regrow the roots; you just have to keep the crown or fan from staying way too moist and the insects from wanting to eat away at it. I usually spray them with a fungicide (Banrot) to ward off any fungus/bacteria and will drench the soil/crown/fan a few times over the next week or so. I will also include a systemic/soil insecticide to ward off any fungus gnat larvae and other wormy things from wanting to eat away at the exposed crown.

This is just IMHO and if I'm wrong so be it, but I just don't see it being the norm.

I totally agree with Michele on this. I've tried to get the "roots" to grow new plants but to no avail. I have gotten a root with a tiny piece of crown to grow a new fan, a few times. The bigger the attached piece of crown is, the more likely you can get a new fan to grow. I have broken the fan off at the crown and tried to get it to root, but so far, I haven't suceeded. I think it will work, as Michele stated, but I haven't been lucky to have a little bit of crown attached to the fan. I always manage to break mine off above the crown.

I repotted over 700 pots of daylilies last fall. I had thousands of cut off roots left from this task. I put them in the compost pile so if any wanted to grow, they could have. None grew!!! My compost pile was spread out and did not get hot, so the heat didn't kill any of the pieces until I put them over into the main pile after they all died. I did salvage alot of pieces with crowns. I had several survive and are growing today. Trust me when I say, I give everything a chance to grow. I'm not one to just throw away anypiece of plant that might grow another plant. I'm quite compulsive about this.

I also think Trudy should give this a try. Like you said, nothing to lose!!! By chance you get a piece with a crown, you might get another plant. At worse, you have a pot ready to grow a new plant or a bare spot in your garden bed ready to plant a new arrival later on. This is what makes all of the hard work pay off, getting a new plant for nothing. I love the thrill of watching to see if that root will put up a little green head, if not, oh well, I tried!!!

As always, have fun and many blessings to all, Mona

Oh you guys are so nice to take the time to give nice long explanations of everything. I really appreciate it. I figured I couldn't be the only one who had this thought and figured some of you may have tried. I will leave them where they are...stuck in a potted plant.

But having all this information makes the argument I had with my husband totally unreasonable on my part...I had two roots...I knew the name of one but not the other. They were sitting on the patio table awaiting your answers...He got home from work and picked them up and stuck them in the dirt of a potted plant...I guess he didn't feel the need to ask any forum! Anyway, I protested that he had just lost the name of the new plant and I'd have to wait for it to bloom before I'd know which was which.

Wait til I tell him that neither one of them will have names

I've gone absolutely crazy...

Ah, but the person who DID it might be thinking of old fulva, which, when the runners/rhyzomes/roots break off can produce another plant. Sometimes years later. Which is why a new planting of hybrid daylilies can sometimes have what looks like a reversion back to the old orange one.

Ask me how I know!

OK, I'll tell you. I have a bunch of old fulva that can never be completely grubbed out since it is also interplanted with another old trumpet vine (actually 2 close together and a hundred years old). Along with compost and good watering, one runner ended up in the middle of the new hybrid plantings. Ooh, I thought as it was growing. Tall. Well branched. Lotsa buds. What the heck did I plant there that I forgot about? You guessed it. It was fulva.

Now I always watch for a paler green single plant stuck in the bed somewhere, early spring. The color of the leaves IS different. And I yank it out. My other clue is, that bed, the Tapestry Garden on the website, and Facebook, only has clumps planted in it. I grow a daylily elsewhere when young and only put it in a heavily planted cottage garden once it has a clump.

New hybrids need part of the crown to grow a new plant.

I went and read what was over on GW. The person saying this can be done by planting a piece of root, or tuber as they called them, says they have done it with hundreds of hybrid daylilies. If this is so IMHO I think they must be getting some crown along with it.

Once in awhile when digging up a clump there are some little roots or bulbous looking roots that fall off the clump that actually have little tiny stringy looking roots hanging from them. I think these could possibly produce another plant. But if they are just roots cut from the main plant, I wouldn't think so.

I agree that a root alone will not make a plant. If you have a bit of the crown it may or may not. I do replant those and have had partial success.

Welcome to the world of daylilies! They are great plants and a very fun hobby!

Teresa in KY

These little things I'm having a hard time explaining. Wish I had a pic of one. They are kind of shaped like a tulip bulb and have roots hanging from them. I think probably that this little bulb is a crown in and of itself and could produce another plant. It is probably the first stage of another fan developing from the main clump that fell off as I dug the clump up.

Hemlady I know exactly what you are describing. I planted one from an order I received in august of 2010. It grew and is still a single fan but bloomed this year. It is Primal Scream.[Not the one I got from you but one I had purchased the year before. By the way, your plants have done fantastic.Siloam Merle Kent has been reblooming still right now.] Karen

Hemlady said: These little things I'm having a hard time explaining. Wish I had a pic of one. They are kind of shaped like a tulip bulb and have roots hanging from them. I think probably that this little bulb is a crown in and of itself and could produce another plant. It is probably the first stage of another fan developing from the main clump that fell off as I dug the clump up.

Sounds like a fleshy root with feeder roots attached.

Would have to see it to think otherwise. From what I see here, crowns don't look like little bulbs!!!

If daylilies did multiply from roots or the fleshy bulb-like water conservers,
I would have thousands of new plants. These things get cut off and left in the
ground when moving them, and I don't have any new green plants in the
empty beds.

But, I did dig up a seedling that had a runner crossing into the next row which had
a fan growing on the runner end. Someone explain this to me. With the seedling
rows close together, and waiting two years to dig, I can now see how they
can get mixed up. I brushed the soil off this seedling to get a good look at
the runner with the fan attached to it, and the thing really did this.

That is so interesting Shirlee. I think I would plant it away from everything else and see if it continues to multiply by runners. Did you look up the parentage as far back as you could? I would be real curious to see what is in there,.

Shirlee, I have a few daylilies that will put out stolens with fans on the end. This spring I had a nice sized fan of Tal of Gascone that I dug and was going to send to Dot. It was growing a little ways away from the mother plant so I thought it would be an easy division. When I dug it, it was on a stolen that had no roots. I planted the thing and it developed roots over the summer and grew, although it shrunk in size once I removed it because it had no roots. In this case I think the stolen had crown tissue on it. I have also had this happen with Caesar Augustus, but by the time I dug that stolen it had already developed roots.

Stephanie, that one didn't make the seedling cut to keep. It was one
of the 2010 seedlings dug this year. So, don't keep track of the ones
that go bye bye, except for 'don't cross again'.

I hear you there.

Ann, so evidently some of these plants will increase underground like a strawberry plant
does above ground. Maybe.
This is so interesting.