@JavaMom hope all went well in regards to the storm.
Since no one commented on your request for planting feedback I will take a jab at it. They look like they are spaced ok. Just remember that the crown of the plant should be at surface level. Some in colder zones ( Mike Grossmann in MN) plant them about an inch or so below the surface. For you surface level should be OK.

Good morning Mike, how are you this morning ?
Thanks God that we are OK, just rains, lots of lightning & thunder and very strong wind...Unfortunately people who live North of us (Grayson County) got damages of more than 1 tornado (I think they said 3), some people got injured but no fatality.
Thank you for noticing my question about planting the daylilies, I haven't plant daylilies in years, my only daylilies are few noids I got from Lowe's/Home Depot years ago and I dont remember how I planted them...
I wonder if I should plant the crown below the surface but decided not do it and check with you all, I figure if I need to do that, I'll just add more soil/mixed.
I haven't finish the whole bed yet, waiting for my last order that should be here today, when I'm finished I'll cover the bed with mulch...

I would strongly suggest not planting that crown below the ground, its going to pull itself down some anyway. Try to mound up a the middle of the hole, set the crown on it, let the roots fall down in the hole, and fill in. I find it very important to hold the plant in place when watering and tapping down, make sure you hold that plant up by the leaves and dont let it get tapped down with it.

I have read this forum and find it interesting. Lots of questions and concerns about daylily health from rust and pests makes me feel fortunate. Our daylilies look great. They are very large plants just doing fantastic. We planted seedlings in the garden very late last fall and just before winter and they survived at well over 90%. It takes two years to bloom seedlings but we have been growing seedling since 2009 so we see new blooms every year. Daylilies have been grown by my family for many years and we have only seen rust one time in our zone 7a gardens and we brought it in from purchasing a couple of plants in the spring that started it. It never came back after that year.

We are folks farther north. (about 200 miles)
Yesterday we had 3 tornadoes touch down and do some damage within 3 miles of our house. The wind blew 60-70+ mph for a while and we have tree and limb damage, there was some hail but not enough for any hail damage, it rained 1.5 inches, and we had a 4.0 earthquake that was centered 7 miles away that gave the house a pretty good shake. I left for work while still dark so I will have to check more on the damage later. But most important things as they are, the daylilies are setting early scapes and doing great, looking as good as I can recall. We are looking forward to blooms and hybridizing. We want to see the new seedlings that will bloom this year.

(The first several sentences do have to do with daylily rust... I promise...)

Late last night (after midnight) we let our dog Warp out for his bedtime potty, which resulted in him running around the swimming pool, barking like mad and generally raising heck.

DH and I went out there with flashlights to see what all the fuss was about (there have been frogs in the pool which Warp has gotten excited about, but without this racket), and discovered that there was a raccoon swimming in the pool!

We eventually managed to get hold of Warp and leash him up, during which time the coon climbed out of the pool and made its escape.

Now, I have three daylily seedling beds right next to that pool deck. One of them is full, the other two we just built. I had been watching that bed frequently checking for scapes (currently scapes on 5 of the 75 seedlings; 10 seedlings are too new to bloom this year), so today I anxiously went out there to see if the raccoon had gotten into the bed and damaged the plants.

No damage to the seedlings (I do have some wire fencing in there, sort of in hoop tunnels, over all but a small part of the bed). Thankfully, no scapes were broken. (The image below is from January 1st of this year, clearly showing the wire fencing hoops. They were placed that way both to discourages birds and small mammals, and also to protect the tiny seedlings from dog and deer. It looks like we have now successfully fenced the deer out, but I am keeping fencing on the seedlings to protect them from the other critters.)



BUT... for the first time (since these got planted out last spring) I saw rust on some of the seedlings. In particular, the rust was on some (expected to be) near-white tets, and also a cross I had high hopes for to produce polys.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, since last winter (a year ago) every seedling that went into the bed had at least a tiny bit of rust. But I plucked leaves and discarded the rustiest seedlings (rather than planting them), and the patch had been clean of rust since last spring. I am not happy. To make matters worse, right now I can't get at the back of the bed (where the rusty seedlings are) to spray or pull leaves or do anything, because my garden workers have a mountain of redwood fines there, literally up against the edge of the bed. That is going to be their first task come Friday, to move that mulch away from the bed, so I can get in there and pull leaves or whatever. I guess maybe it was a stroke of luck, or at least good timing, that I just recently learned about the Serenade and got some. I have a feeling I will be using it.

(I will try to give an update on those daylilies that I did treat (yesterday) with the Serenade maybe in a few days, or later.)

javaMom and Ashton, I'm glad you're OK.

Polymerous, would you mind telling me the parents of your poly sdlg with rust?

Thank you Leslie, one of those wicked weather of Texas...
Thank you Pam and glad your seedlings are OK Polymerous !

@Lalambchop1 - check your tree mail.

Someone mentioned about putting on cornstarch on the cut of the roots so it won't rot, but I don't quite remember....Can someone please tell me my memory right ?

Thank you !

I posted that and I have been racking my poor brain to remember where I read that, but have had no luck. Anyhow, the daylilies are doing fine and I have not had any rot so maybe it is more than just an "old wives tale".

Thanks Larry !!! I accidently cut part of the root between two fans, so I cut better it with the knives and now wonder if I can go ahead and plant or put something on those two separate cuts to avoid rot ?

If it's any consolation, Larry, I've also heard about using cornstarch on cuts but have no idea where I picked it up. More often I've heard about rubbing Comet cleaner (or similar products) or lime on a cut. I think the lime is supposed to make it callus quickly to prevent an entry point for rot. Comet, obviously, has bleach in it which would kill the bacteria if it contacts it. Air drying probably helps with the callus depending on the plant.

Cornstarch?

I think the people over on the iris forum use Comet if rot is an issue.

Well, after much searching and straining of my brain I finally remembered that I did not read that at all. I actually watched a You Tube video by Karol Emmerich and what she actually says is "Baby Powder" and I had a shaker of Baby Powder and it is corn starch. So that is where the idea of using corn starch came from.

Even so. What good does it supposedly do?

It supposedly prevents rot.

It might actually help, too. If you do a search for cornstarch in association with plants there was some indication that it caused cells to enlarge. If it did that, it might seal off the entry points allowing entry for bacteria and it might also dry the surface of a wound. That combination would be a callus effect which would be much less susceptible to picking up infection than a fresher surface wound, I would think.

Wow... fascinating.

Well, as the year progresses the rust has become the worst ever in my garden. I don't know if there are going to be any plants that are not affected by it to some degree.

Some of the worst ones so far are Awesome Blossom rated 2.0, Tuscawilla Tigress rated 2.3,Lime Frost rated at 1.7, Buttered Popcorn surprisingly rated at 1.3, , Missouri Memories rated also at a 1.3 and Scottish Fantasy no rating. There are many many more that have some very noticeable rust developing and they may eventually look just as bad. The daylily bog bed is not looking very attractive at this stage. Blooms are popping up everywhere, but the rust is such an eyesore.
This is what Awesome Blossom looks like after just removing the worst of the rusty leaves.

You can see the scapes are even covered in rust after removing the leaves.




I cut back some Lime Frost plants today, this one I really cut back it was just looking awful and has not even sent up a scape yet.

This one I just cut back more moderately.

I cut back over half of the foliage on Scottish Fantasy:

As you look over parts of the garden you can see a lot of rust on the plants.

You can see the bog is still a little... shall we say damp?
I was hoping to make it though the season with out having to spray, but now it has become obvious to me that even with a lot of rust resistant plants there is no hope of having a beautiful daylily garden here without a spray program. As much as I was hoping to be able to avoid spraying for rust, it looks like the only choice now. I need to really educate myself, and just break down and be committed to spending some of the money normally spent on plants and fertilizer etc. on chemical sprays.
Who has a spray program for rust that really works and is fairly simple and affordable?

Larry - with the bog area, that may be part of the problem. Do you get a lot of shade there, too?

I find rust is more of a problem if I use the micro sprinklers too close to dark, so that tells me that the wet and damp leaves promote rust growth and spread. High humidity is a no-no for me.

I've got some rust resistant cultivars (1.5 -all the way to susceptible 5.0) that start showing rust during high humidity. I've been gravitating to 1.0 -1.5 resistant cultivars more and more.

But make sure that all the damage that you are seeing on the leaves is rust and not other issues. Thrips and leaf streak are a far worse problem for me this spring than rust. It's very frustrating to say the least ......