Thank you so much Sue for the useful detailed information! I hope this helped Larry with the zones concern.

Thank you Larry for the video. I will try this until the real moving time which would not happen until late fall. At that time it would be fall cleaning for the garden anyway, and plants would have been cooled down a bit.
I would need to store the daylilies this way for at least a few months until I can finally put them in ground. Depends on how quick we could find a house. Don't know if they would stay alive for such a long period of time.

Daylilybaby, you'll be moving to Canada's pnw. Your climate will be very similar to mine here in SW Washington. I never have to worry about which Daylilies I buy. They can all be grown here. Dormant, evergreens or semi-evergreens. So happy for you.

When we moved to where we live now, it was winter. I brought a lot of plants with me and healed them into saw dust where they stayed until I could plant them, as was suggested by a local nursery. It worked out very well. I didn't loose a thing.

Oh, one other thing. Yes, summer is dry here, but there is usually a lot of rain until summer. Often you can begin spring chores in February, which makes for a long gardening season.

Joy said:Daylilybaby, you'll be moving to Canada's pnw. Your climate will be very similar to mine here in SW Washington. I never have to worry about which Daylilies I buy. They can all be grown here. Dormant, evergreens or semi-evergreens. So happy for you.

When we moved to where we live now, it was winter. I brought a lot of plants with me and healed them into saw dust where they stayed until I could plant them, as was suggested by a local nursery. It worked out very well. I didn't loose a thing.

Thank you Joy I am very happy and excited too!! What is pnw and saw dust?

PNW = Pacific Northwest.

Saw dust:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I was one of the volunteers who helped Mort pot up seedlings to move. Most of the time I was there, it was only Mort and myself and a couple of really fat toads in the potting soil. We had a good time and got a lot done! I miss both of them.

@Joy did you keep the saw dust moist, ? I would think it would draw moisture out of the dl roots and dry them out if it wasn't misted off and on?


I think if the OP wants to keep the dl for several MONTHS before planting them, they would need cold storage of some kind. Maybe a fridge set at 45ish or so. A misting of moisture off and on and open the door 3 or 4 times a day to let in fresh air. ? I don't know. A few weeks is one thing, but months, I don't know about that. I did have some once that I dug with the soil, like a ball and 'planted' them in plastic walmart bags. Poke a hole in the bottom for drainage. You can pack quite a few in a small area this way and they lasted a long time for me. They turn brown, look pitiful ect. but they lived and did ok when I finally got them planted.

Frilly, yes I did. But I didn't have to water them very often until later in the spring. We have wet winters and springs here. Most were healed in the sawdust for about 4 to 6 months, from January through April, and then some were in there longer as I was still planting out stuff in late June. At the time, I mostly grew a variety of perennials, but I did have a couple of Daylilies as well. Some of these plants had a bit of soil still attached to their roots, some were bareroot. Of course everything was dormant when they were moved. So this may make a difference too? But I was very pleased with how well everything did when held over this way.

Hi all, we had a situation that touches on this topic. An aunt and uncle were having their 60th anniversary, so we shipped them some Cherokee Star as a gift. It was shipped bare root wrapped in damp newspaper. We then went on a vacation. When we got back we checked with them, and the plant was not received. Long story short - we made a mistake on the Postal Code, and it came back to us - three weeks and one day after we mailed it. The plant was bone dry, but still showed some green on the leaves near the crown. We soaked it for a day, planted it, and watered it regularly. This all happened in late Aug, and Sept. It came back, wintered well, and we are happy to say it is doing well. PS - we did ship them another small clump of CS and they are very happy with it!

So in summary what worked for us is bare root with cut back foliage, wrapped in damp paper. Good for 3 weeks, hydrate, plant and water. So if we are talking up to a month, this would probably work for you. Multiple months - ??

Good luck!

So Joy, let me make sure I got this right. You had all your daylilies dug out cut the green, healed them all with sawdust, put them in a box or bags I suppose, and no need to water them from Jan to April. Did you keep them in a garage or outdoor or it doesn't matter?

Actually, we had the sawdust delivered to our new home. We just had it on the ground in an out of the way place. I healed the plants into it. It was winter when I moved, so I didn't have anything green to cut off mostly. If we had a dry spell in the winter I would water. But winters are generally pretty wet here. Your climate in BC, should be very similar. Winters are mild here, if the temperatures do get low, they don't usually stay there for long. And any snow or ice will usually thaw during daylight. So no need to keep a hardy plant inside. There are a number of things that could be different though. I was only moving 15 miles away. I moved in the winter. When will you be moving? I'd think if you weren't moving during the heat of summer you may be able to move your dayliles bare root in bags. Then heal them into the sawdust when you get to your new home?

One other thought. You could probably use pine bark mulch in place of the sawdust. Daylilies love it and it would hold the moisture in probably better than sawdust would. I used sawdust because that's what was recommended to me. And I wasn't just moving Daylilies. Sawdust is cheap but pine bark mulch couldn't be much more. Especially if you have it delivered by a truck bed full. They sell them by the yard. If I remember correctly, I had ordered 3 yards to be delivered. I was able to heal in 100's of plants in those 3 yards. So it goes a long way. if you think of any more questions, please ask. I'll be happy to help if I can.

Joy did you take any photos, if not I hope Daylilybaby will document her move for the next people that face that problem. I would love to have seen a video or even stills of the Daylily World move, that must have been a really huge job.

Larry, I didn't take photos of the process, we were just too busy moving. But I did take some photos of plants coming up out of the sawdust that spring. However, that was in the year 2000. I lost all my photos from the early 2000's due to a hard drive crash. They weren't the best photos as the digital cameras back then weren't what they are today, but they were all I had and it was still sad to lose them all. I've sense learned to back up everything.

Joy - Good point! I need to back all my photos up on an external hard drive I have hooked up to my computer. I probably need to do that very soon! Murphy's Law ... So sorry you lost all those photos! I can't even imagine making such a move with so many plants! That would've probably done me in.

Becky, We lived in a rental for 9 years before we bought this place. I had made many flower beds there and had 100's of plants. I was just going to take a little of most everything with us, so I wouldn't disturb the flower beds we were leaving behind. But the land lady asked me to try to get it all. They were just going to go in and plant grass the next spring, because she said most of her tenant's wouldn't want to take care of flower beds. So we took them all. It was a big job, but we had a lot of help. Took 3 big van loads of just plants to move them all. This was before I was hit with the Daylily bug. Can't imagine trying to move everything I'm growing now? My plant addiction is much, much 'worse' today! Plus I have much more room to grow it all in than what I had in the rental.

Joy - Do you have a website? I would love to see what your gardens look like now!

I live on a residential lot (1/4 acre). With a house in the middle. I am squeezing in beds all over the place because I have the obsession for daylily hybridizing, I garden for butterflies & hummingbirds, but I also like all kinds of other plants from trees to herbs and many plants in-between. All squeezed on a lot. I do still have room for more beds! At my age ... I am focusing on the hardscaping and the big plants (trees and shrubs) while I can still do that kind of hard work. I am getting up there in age now and know I am on a time clock before I will no longer be able to lift heavy bags of soil or concrete (which is my hardscaping material of choice), as well as all the planting stuff. I am calling it my 5 year plan. Get it all done within 5 more years (if I am lucky).

I can NOT imagine moving 100's of daylilies. That must have been quite a feat. I commend you for doing such a tremendous job like that! THAT is what I call a labor of love!

There are all sorts of other medium possibilities also for "parking" daylilies, such as vermiculite, sand, soilless potting mix, peat moss etc. etc. It would be a question of modifying one's maintenance practices to take moisture retention, or not, into account. I earlier mentioned having some new arrivals "parked" in a plastic crate - here's a picture. There are about 14 new daylilies stuffed in here, they've been there since the middle of May (haven't prepared anywhere to put them permanently yet!) and are quite happy, one has even flowered. They're in soilless potting mix, the crate lined with a garbage bag to stop it falling out. Some people use tote tubs or whatever they're called but that requires more medium because they're deeper.

They do sell "shallow" plastic tubs, too. But you would need to punch some holes in the bottom with a screwdriver or knife for drainage if they are going to be outside in the weather. I have some old one I dug up that weren't any of my favorites that will be planted out in some areas of my yard that need color. They've been sitting in a shallow bin for 2 months now. I am planning to get them planted this coming week. Poor things! See below:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Main... (Four comes with this set for that price.)

They come in all different sizes. I don't use the tops for covering any plants though. I use the lids to paint on. Like my plant makers or decorating some of my clay pots. I sit the things I am painting on the lids to dry (if I don't have cardboard or something else). I like the lids for my knife plant markers because I can easily move all the markers at once to some place they can dry that is out of the way. These containers are great for storing stuff using the lids with them because they are stackable. It's an investment that could be used in numerous ways!

beckygardener said:They do sell "shallow" plastic tubs, too. But you would need to punch some holes in the bottom with a screwdriver or knife for drainage if they are going to be outside in the weather.

Those would work too, but I was thinking of these, which are apparently called "rope tubs" not "tote tubs":

http://www.lowes.com/pd_599243...

For longer term these have the advantage of more root space if necessary and should require less watering. The plants could stay in them even longer term and just be picked up and put on the moving truck (if that's how they're going and assuming not recently watered to make them too heavy) with no need to immediately plant them at the other end either.