I only have a few daylilies in a perennial bed.
Your organization is tremendous!
I might copy your PVC pipe as a marker to keep rows straight for other plants.
Thank you!

Leslie - I enjoyed your article. Gave me some ideas! Thanks!

I like the marked pvc pipe idea, too! May have to borrow that idea when I get ready to plant in my newest raised bed.

I just have to ask .....

Did you really re-plant 154 daylilies in an 8' x 6' raised bed???? If so, how close were they to each other? (I can't figure it out ...)

Thank you two for your kind words.

Becky, I did replant at least that many in the raised bed. They are really too close together, about 15", but that's all the space I had.

Leslie - Are you sure the bed is 8' x 6' ?

I am building an 8' x 9' raised bed and am going to be planting my daylilies approx. 12" apart which will get crowded pretty fast. I will only be able to get (maybe) 72 daylilies in that bed. (Actually less because it will be a key-hole raised bed.)

OMG. I"m sorry. It was a 6x8 foot section that a trashcan of roots came out of. The bed is 8' x 40'.

I was literally wracking my brain trying to do the math of how you could possibly get that many daylilies in an 8' x 6' raised bed!

8' x 40' bed sounds like a more accomodating size!

THAT is a nice sized bed! Wow! If I only had the land ......

This is my tip, I picked it up from from Leslie one day at her house, when she still lived in Orlando. . Get your beds and especially your pots ready a few months ahead if you can, and water water water to pack the dirt down. This keeps the plants from pulling themselves down so much. Pulling down is about one of my biggest issues. I get so tired of having to redo every single plant every year. Works well for me. Pine fines are sometimes hard to get settled in.

Pam - I have very packed dirt in one of my beds and my plants don't multiply as well. I've had this problem for several years. I have two other smaller beds that I used pine fines in and those plants multiply much faster and even look healthier. I have often wondered why plants pull down into the dirt. My thoughts are that they are looking for moisture. My beds cook here in summer and even with frequent watering, the dirt dries out at the surface so fast.

But I don't know for sure the cause, would love to hear what @Sooby or @admmad or @floota would have to add about this issue with daylilies.

@Lalambchop1 Thanks for a great article. I wish I had known your tip about preparing the beds and watering them down before planting. I have Pam's problem of pulling down and have lost some because of this.

My guess is, different parts of the country have different issues with this, but its a big problem here.

I, too, am in Florida. I am curious to know why daylilies pull themselves down into the soil like that?

Two of my raised beds are lined with tarp (I punched holes in them for drainage). My daylilies have not pulled down in those beds. I also have pine fines in those beds and they get watered regularly .... they are much happier plants than the other bed!

Pine fines have made my daylily experience so much more pleasant and productive. I finally found some a couple years ago and Im actually getting roots now.
I only wish I was as organized in all other areas as Leslie. I have nothing like that chart.

Leslie: I'm so impressed with your system and your well organized method. I myself use the haphazard approach, which
is about all I have time for

Hey Pam,
Thanks so much for mentioning that. I do it but had forgotten. I think they pull themselves down because right after you till the bed the soil is light and fluffy with lots of air pockets. As time passes and it rains the soil settles. If you plant before the soil settles my guess is the plants are pulled down in the process. You don't want to compact the soil before planting but it's good to get that settling done. I have to thank Dan Hansen for teaching me about this.

beckygardener said: But I don't know for sure the cause, would love to hear what Sooby or admmad or floota would have to add about this issue with daylilies.

I took out the @'s in the quote so as not to send more notices to Julie and Maurice (and myself)!

Daylilies, or at least Hemerocallis fulva, are reported to have contractile roots that can pull the crown down. There is an article about this by Putz but I'd have to re-read it and won't have time tonight. This other article, Light Activation of Contractile Roots of Easter Lily:
http://journal.ashspublication...
cites Putz's Hemerocallis article and discusses reasons why this phenomenon may exist in various plants (such as the plant trying to position itself in a better environment). The article also suggests Putz is attributing it to a component of growth in the daylily. Daylilies can grow new crowns above old so it would make sense that they'd want to pull the old one down a bit or the new one would end up in the air, not sure if that's what is being referred to though. Anyway, you might want to read the article in the link above.

Do you all plant on a mound in the planting hole as suggested in the AHS FAQ:
http://www.daylilies.org/AHSFA...

Thanks, Sue, for replying! Interesting information.

I know that I should plant my daylilies on a mound, but often I don't. I remember having some older daylilies pull themselves down into the soil years ago. This was 15 years ago when I had a clump of NOIDs that someone gave me as a gift. I planted them and they bloomed well and multiplied. I should have divided them, but didn't. I noticed that they were going underground and eventually I lost all of them. At the time, I knew nothing about daylilies and didn't know what to do to save them, so I didn't do anything and they eventually disappeared.

There is some information about daylilies repositioning themselves in a previous post:
The thread "Crown Planting Depth - Especially in Areas with Very Hot Summers" in Daylilies forum