Karol Emmerick says this is about the cut off date for planting SEV's in cold climates. So I said I will wait for spring to order. I have planted DLs a lot later than this - a lot of places don't send until much later. I imagine this would be even more important with EV's? If this is true, I should put all my orders away for next year; what do you
think the cut off date for zone 4b should be?

Caitlin,

I have noticed that any newly arrived daylilies that I planted after mid August suffered greatly through the winter and spring. Either they died or emerged as thin as thin grasses, and took up to two years to recuperate and bloom.

Last summer I potted over 250 daylilies and put most of them in a cold greenhouse. Some I took in the house mid November. The greenhouse became as cold as 40°, and the house was never any warmer than 70°. There was no extra lighting.

All the plants grew, multiplied, and bloomed. The ones in the house bloomed January through late April.

My zone is officially 5b, but I have notice duringt the last 25 years that many zone 5 hardy plants do not survive the winter. I suspect that my little micro area is more of a zone 4.

This last winter I did not have any losses among the daylilies. They all came from Florida and California.

I hope this is of some help to you.

I'm zone 5b and have planted well into September. I try *TRY* to have everything done by the first week of September but that isn't always the case. If you are a zone colder, I would look up the frost and freeze dates for your area and stop planting 6-8 weeks before that.

profesora said:
My zone is officially 5b, but I have notice duringt the last 25 years that many zone 5 hardy plants do not survive the winter. I suspect that my little micro area is more of a zone 4.

.

That's entirely possible. There's a winery in Napa Valley, whose vineyards are on a low mountainous area (I forget which). They claim that their property contains four distinct
microclimates. Each of which does different things to the grapes.

FWIW

USDA zones not appropriate for daylilies? This is a long article, but it applies to the cold zones to a large extent, but tons of good information,
http://www.solarisfarms.com/Da...

Over the years daylilies planted in spring just do better in my zone 4 garden I have planted later but they usually take much longer to settle in and multiply. When I plant late for me the cut off date is to be planted before Labor Day. Spring planting is best in zone 4 for all daylilies dor, sev and ev they are much happier settling in before it gets so blazing hot IMHO.

Thank you! This is probably why some of my DLs do not do much for a couple of years. I will have to look over my past orders and see if I can see a pattern. Karol says that you can continue to move clumps quite late in the year.

Last year I got a later order of DL's and planted them in the ground and mulched them. One of my plants got dug up by my chickens a couple weeks after I had planted it, I don't know how long it lay there waiting for me to find it, but I re-planted it. Then about the end of October I found it scratched out of the ground again. I thought as I replanted it I can kiss this one goodby. Then this spring it greens up nicely, and now has two bloom stems showing. It's one called Calming Effect. We had several days of minus 22 degrees last winter. I did loose a few of the other ones over the winter though.

There are some DL's that you just can't kill! One year I left a pile divided into single fans that never got planted. They were still there in the spring and I threw some dirt over them and they grew. Probably a stone hardy dormant!

My order invoice from Maryott's last fall was dated 9-03-13, which is probably when they sent them out. They are all full healthy plants with buds. They were large when they were planted, also, so maybe where they are coming from makes a difference? A fan from the north that hasn't had as much growing time may not do as well as one from the south or California?
My other DL's were ordered in July. I never have as much enthusiasm for ordering plants in February as I do when they start to bloom. Sometimes I don't even open my garden mags and catalogs over the winter!