I also think crown rot is much worse. It is almost always fatal.

Totally agree!!! Ive had many plants that every year get smaller and smaller, but the only thing that has ever just killed a plant is crown rot, or what I call crown suffication from being pulled down in this sandy soil.. Well, Ive accidently used the wrong sprayer and sprayed round up, but thats human stupidity, not the plant.

You wouldn't be the first to do that Pam, I've heard others say the same thing. We keep our sprayers and chemicals for weeds in a seperate shed than the other chemicals and we write on the sprayers "ROUNDUP ONLY" or "WEEDS ONLY".

We bought different colors of sprayers so now we know that the green ones are for Roundup and the white ones for fungicides, etc.

Casshigh said:I have learned to take a more relaxed attitude about rust. Several years ago we had rust to appear for the first time. It came in on a plant that we had gotten from our spring region meeting from a garden from out of state. The two plants next to it had developed rust, too, once the rust was discovered. I cut the foliage back and treated the plants with the Bayer product that we had on hand. It took care of the problem. I had panicked thinking this is the worst thing possible in the daylily world. A year later I found out there is something much worse that can do much more damage to a daylily (kill it), and that is crown rot. Crown rot helped to adjust my attitude about daylily rust. Since our initial experience with rust and buying large numbers of new daylilies arriving in the spring of each year, we get rust on a few of the new additions to the garden. No matter how hard I try to avoid buying daylilies from rust prone areas, I succumb each year and buy some. We get daylilies each spring from a grower in S. Georgia and get rust on their daylilies every year. I have learned to unload them in front of the house away from the main daylily garden, cut the foliage back, place the foliage in a trash bag, spray the plant and scapes (wipe off the scapes first) with a contact spray, once potted drench with Bayer 3 in 1, and put Bayer 3 and 1 granuales on top of the soil in the pot. This has worked for us. Unfortunately, it is the other daylilies that come in the mail that I let slip by me that bring in the rust. We now spray all of our daylilies for rust. If the rust is caught early, a rust outbreak can be avoided. Rust does not usually appear here until the main bloom season is over, so if left alone it would be bearable. I really expected a bad outbreak of rust last summer because of the mild winter we had last year. The only rust we had were in the areas where we had added new plants last spring. I plan to be more proactive this spring with the daylilies coming in the mail and may be able to prevent any rust from coming into our garden, plus continue to spray our daylilies for rust in the spring when we spray for thrips, aphids, spidermites, leaf miners, etc.

Doris

Thanks Doris! What do you spray them with?

Thanks everybody!! ... I feel better.

I used Daconil for the rust. It is affordable and can be found at local garden centers. I was thinking about using something else that is stronger this year but do not know what right now. I may stay with Daconil since it has worked for us. I may use a dip of some kind for the new daylilies coming and then use the Bayer 3 In 1 for those in conjunction with the Daconil spray for all the daylilies. Maybe others will tell us what they use.

I used the generic brand of Avid which is Abamectin for the insecticide and miticide. Tink told us about it on another thread last spring. I bought it on Ebay or Amazon.com. Don't remember which. It is cheaper than Avid but still cost just under $100. Don't remember the quantity but you use only a small amount, so it will last several years. It is down in our storage building. I will have to check to see what the quantity is. I was pleased with it. This past summer is the first year that we finally had blooms on Gary Colby. Previous summers we might have one or two blooms. The spider mites really like that daylily in our garden.

One thing that I regret not doing is spraying the generic Avid at least one more time. I only sprayed once and that took care of the aphid, thrip, and spider mite problem. I did not see signs of leaf miners until after the daylilies were well into their bloom season. By that time a new batch had hatched out. I will be more persistent this year to keep the leaf miners out of the garden. I don't like seeing their trails on the daylily foliage. I don't notice it so much during the growing season, but they show up in the pictures that we take and look at during the off season, like now. I cut back the foliage in the late fall and clean out any dead foliage around the plants to help prevent insects from overwintering in this foliage. I still have some areas now that still have foliage that has not been cut back. I will work on it on good weather days. The evergreens will put up new foliage. By doing this is the late fall, I don't have to spend a lot of time in early spring cleaning out the dead foliage around the daylily plants. The beds will be ready to put down fertilizers in early spring followed by mulch. Anything I can do before early spring helps tremendously. I want to start spraying for insects once the foliage puts up. Depending on the weather, that could be mid March to early April here. During normal weather years, we start searching for the first scape sighting in late April.

I have been planting daylilies this week. I know it's not the preferred time for planting, but I don't want to overwinter them in pots. These are daylilies that we acquired in September and did not get planted. We got a new bed made this week. Our lowest temperature so far was about 24 degrees a few times. We should get into the teens several times before the winter is over. I hope so to kill out the rust spores. I hope to plant more potted daylilies Monday. I also have a bed of daylilies that I want to move to other beds in the next few weeks. I have daylilies in pots to go into this bed. That will be my next project (creating a red, white, and blue daylily bed). The scapes will probaby be shorter and fewer buds on these daylilies that I am planting/moving so late. At least they will be established before the hot, dry summer gets here.

Doris
,.

The Avid ( I also use the generic) is 1/4 tsp per gallon is what the Rosemania website says to use. Bill Waldrop says he use 2 1/2 tsp per 4 gallon. I use a 15 gallon sprayer and I was told to use 2 oz.
I need to spray tomorrow for spider mites because in some of the beds they are really bad. I'm glad I was redoing the show bed yesterday because that's how I found them when I was digging up plants and moving them. When I was waking around just looking at the beds I thought it was just the foliage dying from the cold, boy was I wrong.

It's early for us to have spider mites, but with our wacky winter again everything thinks it's time to do what they do. We have daffodils emerging, trees budding, birds acting like it's spring, and so on.

Thanks Doris.


Michele, we have had a wacky winter also. Trees are budding and way too many birds, what are they thinking? Maybe they know something we don't.
Also, we have had a ton of rain and I am very disheartened about how much stuff will be rotted by spring.

Just a note of caution on using AVID. It works wonderfully, but Spider Mites are adaptive little devils and the over use of AVID has caused them to build up a resistance to it. In the rose world the exhibitors over sprayed with it so much that they have almost ceased using it. You should spray a rotation of 3 times when you have a serious infestation: one time a week, one time a week, wait 2 weeks and spray one time more. And then you should not spray again unless you see another serious infestation later in the year. You should never spray AVID as a preventative or for something as easily killed by other products as aphids. There are now other miticides on the market, but they are way more expensive then AVID. Considering the cost alone, it's best to save AVID for only serious infestations of spider mites. As a matter of interest AVID was originally developed as a spray for greenhouse growers of Columbines troubled by leaf miners. A side benefit has been it's destructive power on Spider Mites and Adult Thrips. But again, over use has rendered it ineffective for many growers.........Maryl

If you only notice a few spider mites then you can just spray them off with a strong blast of water, Pat Stamile said he did this as well as bringing in beneficials that go after spider mites. You would want to repeat the water blast regularly.
You can also use Horticultural Oil to smother them but you need to makes sure you get under the foliage real good.

Bayer has a product out 3-in-1 insect, disease, and mite control that is supposed to be for spider mites (never tried it) that may be good for smaller gardens. If I remember reading the label correctly the chemical in it for spider mites is only a contact miticide.

There are other products out that have not shown resistance buildup and there is one that is actually a systemic and not just a translaminar (goes from top to bottom of leaf), but they are extremely expensive right now.

Has anyone used Aspirin Water for rust or disease?

'Aspirin is the remedy for fungal plant problems, Black spot, powdery mildew, and rust are a terrible trio of fungi, which can attack and destroy your plants. Scientists have found that two uncoated aspirin tablets (325 milligrams each) dissolved in 1 quart of water and used as a foliar spray can thwart these diseases.


http://www.finegardening.com/h...

I have heard of people saying they have used aspirin water (and there is an article somewhere on the web where someone used aspirin water on vegetables as an experiment--can't find it right now) on their daylilies, but none have stated that it helped with rust.


Here it is http://www.plantea.com/plant-a...
It's not the original article from Advant Gardener, but it explains it some.

We may have talked about it on here somewhere but I can't find it.

Great article! She doesn't mention Rust or Daylilies specifically but it did improve all the plants in her garden. Very impressive! I think we have found a winner and it is worth a shot. (cheap too)
The article I posted said two aspirin in one gallon and the article you posted said one and a half in two gallons. Her (Martha) experiment was more impressive so I will go with her formula. Also the yucca extract or soap was her idea and that will make it cling better, could be another reason she got such good results.

Now there's a thought. Wouldn't it be great if aspirin is all that is needed to
solve the rust issue, although rust isn't as great an issue with me as it was
when I first saw it.

VirginiaRose, I just read the article that you referenced (great reading -thanks for posting the link) and they recommended 2 aspirin per quart -not gallon. That's 16 aspirin for 2 gallons compared to Martha's 1 1/2 aspirins per 2 gallons. Could it be that in order to combat rust, a higher concentration is needed? Thank you both, VirginiaRose and Tink3472, for such great reading. Although I am fortunate enough not to have had any rust issues, I will be trying the aspirin on my grapevines that get mildew every spring.

Yeah 16 seems a bit much. Martha used a much smaller amount and got great results. If you could boost a plants immune system then it seems like it would do better all around. Maybe help with rust resistance in daylilies that are normally very susceptible. I do have a few and I might do a little experimenting my self. My yard is very hot and humid so I figure if a daylily is going to get rust it will get it here first!

I was thinking along the same lines for the mildew (16 being too much). Maybe I'll start with 2 aspirin in 2 gallons and then work my way up slowly only if needed. I am going to add the soap, also.

Oops, it wasn't daylilies as you said; must have read that somewhere else where someone did that. Of course I'm fixing to be 41 so my memory has been going ever since I turned 40

Anyway, if you google willow water it does the same thing since that is where aspirin originated from, that was talked about over on MyDaylilies.com. Here's an article that explains it http://www.bluestem.ca/willow-...

So if you have a willow tree you can make willow water and use on your plants also, although dissolving an aspirin is much simpler

I would read various articles on the aspirin water to determine a dosage because as I have read, too much can be toxic just like if you swallowed too many aspirin

daylily said:.

I do spray, sometimes, with Messenger. Only because I bought a lot of it years ago. It helps boost or turn on plant immune system. I don't know if they even make it anymore. Back when rust first started, lots of people tried Messenger and said they still got rust.
.

Someone mentioned Messenger someplace else as well. They don't make Messenger any longer but they do make EMPLOY® H&T Plant Health Promoter which is the same thing, just improved and bought by another company. http://www.gardeningthings.com...

I bought some and tried it and I didn't really see a difference in my plants. Other people swear by it and that it really helps the growth of their daylilies. I may not have seen a difference since I use all the other stuff in the beds and they already grow fast