hi all!

question:
when you buy Daylilies from a nursery (online or not), how many fans do you normally buy?
And I don't mean the $100+ ones, but the average priced daylilies

Do you buy 1 or 2 because you know they will multiply anyway in a couple of years, or do you buy more
because you want a nice looking group nów?


thanks,
Mayo

Usually it is a double fan (DF) but check the seller for details. Also the size of that DF can vary greatly. I would stay away from the mail order catalogs that sell everything. A Daylily farm/ hybridizer tends to increase your chance of a healthy, correctly named Daylily.

I only buy one DF as I want variety but some people are looking for a mass planting and may buy more than one.

Hope this helps. Lisa

Yes, a double fan is the norm, but sometimes single fans are listed so be sure to check. I have often seen clump sales on the internet, but have never bought anything listed as a clump. I have seen sites that state their clumps are at least five fans. Even when just buying a double fan, often you actually get three, and unfortunately sometimes you only receive one when buying a double fan.

Mayo, do you have a lot of good sources for daylilies where you live? Here is the US, we have many places to order from, but not all of them send out of the country. Others do send out of the country, but the cost can really go up. I always wonder how everyone else around the world gets their plants!

I think that most sellers sell double fans, but it isn't uncommon to receive more than two fans of the plant. Two fans always seem to do better than one, at least for me. I never divide them when planting them. They multiply faster that way, at least for me!

I think it would depend on how large of an area you want to fill, and how quickly the particular daylily(s) increase.

I had a relatively large area that I wanted to fill with one cultivar so I bought 6 of that cultivar. After 2 years I split them and had 12. Another two years have 24 and now the area is full. So it took me 4 years and 6 plants.

If the daylily didn't increase quickly I would have had to start with more plants, or just be willing to wait longer.

I would guess the vast majority of people just buy double-fans of lots of different daylilies. If you want to fill an area with just one or two different cultivars you'd have to buy more than just one double-fan of each or it may take years to fill in an area...

With my purchases this spring, I had some areas where I wanted two clumps of a cultivar. Since the daylilies were expensive I only bought double-fans of each with the thought that I'd be able to split them in 3 years, and then 2 years after that I'd have 2 nice-sized clumps.

But that is a long time to wait for two full-sized clumps, and I would have like to have bought 4 double-fans each (2 double-fans for each clump) so I get the end-result quicker... I just hope they increase quickly!

I usually purchase 1 double fan. If it is inexpensive I may buy 2 double fans.

When I first purchased Primal Scream the fans I got were very small. So the following year I purchased more from a different source.

This past winter I decided I wanted a particular daylily and wanted a clump quickly. So I did a trade and got 3 very nice size fans plus purchased 2 more from another source.

when I bought my DL's last April the nursery had a sale: 3 fans for the price of 1
So I ended up buying 6 or 9 fans per cultivar...

The result is that I have nice looking groups now, but not much space for future seedlings

Well, we live and learn


Mayo

I think double fans seem to do better for me than single fans, but that may just be my imagination. I've had singles that stayed single for 2 or 3 years.

I had the same experience as Claudia with Primal Scream - I bought PS from one vendor, got really small fans, so the next year I bought some from another vendor and also did a trade to get even more of it. Now I really have an abundance of it!

I agree with stilldew about single fans, that happened to me a couple of different times. I personally would not purchase a single fan again.

I am not a fan of single fans either. I think that can work for people in the south better than it does for us northerners. I bought single fan of Free Wheelin' 3 years ago. It is still a single fan. I am doing a trade to get a couple more! I would like to see it bloom!

Here in our northern climate I like planting double fans as they do much better than single fans. Some daylilies increase faster than others also the amount of rainfall, soil type, amount of sun are some of the things that have a bearing on how daylilies grow and bloom.

I've noticed a huge difference since moving north into a warmer zone. In Utah, zone 5a, I saw very little increase, even after several years. Since moving to zone 7a, I now have clumps of plants that never increased at all. Of course, I didn't plan ahead, since I wasn't expecting so much increase! Now everything is crammed together, thanks to all the growth! I still have lots of single fans that were added last year, and those are taking their time, but anything that was added as a double fan or more has done much better.

I prefer DFs also. The ony time I buy or win a SF on the Lily Auction is one that is still pricey. I haven't lost one yet but sometimes it seems to take longer for them to increase.

It seems almost everyone agrees that double fans increase faster than single fans, I asked a daylily seller why they recommended double fans over single fans and the only response I got was that they were less susceptible to root rot because a double fan would use more water than a single and thus be less prone to rot. Well, that was not the answer I was expecting, so why is it that a double fan would fare any better than two single fans planted apart? Is there anything that would cause two fans planted together to do better or benefit from each other?

I was wondering the same after reading all the posts.
I planted my fans this April, so I have no experience with this yet (that's why I started the thread )

Mayo

But you may get 2 fans that are not joined. I have had that a lot. So do you kind of plant them together or do you space them? I have done it both ways.

I personally plant all the fans together in one hole, whether it's 2 or 3 (or more). If they are not attached, I put them about two inches apart, but in the same hole. That's just how I do it.

I could imagine that double fans that are connected can essentially combine and share their roots, enabling them to find water and nutrients better and deal with trying conditions better.
Hybridizer I purchased from this spring told me not to separate any fans so I didn't. However, a triple fan I received had one fan that was clearly already separated from the other two so I did plant those separately to start two separate clumps. The single is definitely smaller and slower developing, but doing well and it did bloom! Be interesting to compare further over time...

I have divided double fans only once, and the results are what I expected. I planted them all together, but the fans acted like single fans, and aren't increasing like a double fan would, if it was still connected. So, I was sent 3 double fans two years ago, and I divided them, and I still have only 6 fans, even though they were planted close together. Pretty much every double fan that was planted at the same time has increased by at least one, but some by much more. That alone tells me that it is much better to not divide them if they are still together when you get them.