I thought I would go out and look for some example of the different ways plants increase.


These are anywhere from a few inches to a foot or more away from the mother plant. I think they can spread out as far as two or three feet away.

In this photo you can see the small fans forming a line of plants from the mother plant.


This new fan is in between two name cultivars, so I'll have to wait for it to bloom to see if it belongs to either of them. It could have come up from the remains of a previous plant.


I think this is an example of a scape coming up between two fans that will eventually split.


This looks like an example of fans developing right next to the mother plant.


Here is Prairie Blue Eyes: Known for its fast increase:, There must be between 30-50 fans in this small clump. It was a few fans planted from Wild's on March 19th, 2015.

Thanks Larry. May be just as well some of mine are imprisoned in a container . Hard to even see new fans when clumps get like that last one. The clumps are hard to dig around in to find a new one and its easy to overlook one that's there. I think cultivars that do this quickly are probably working on making increase anytime the weather permits it.

There are some clumps that I just cannot separate when I am trying to divide and have to cut through them. I have yet to divide Prairie Blue Eyes, but even with that many fans, just looking at the way they are growing, I think they would separate pretty easily right now. So I may need to do that pretty soon, before they all matt together.

I wonder if this is an example of "grassing", when a plant is grown in a cold climate and tries to adjust to a warm climate. The solution is supposedly to divide the plant and replant separate fans. Guess I need to get busy tomorrow.

I've been paying more attention to fan increase this year. It is interesting how many double fans are still just that, versus ones that are now 4, 5, or even more fans in a clump. I wonder if they pretty much increase at the same rate each year, given about the same growing conditions, or if they multiply fast, then slow down once established or just continue to multiply until they outcompete themselves. Fan increase (or lack thereof) is where I hope to add comments in the database this year.

Another reason I've been paying attention is that I was growing out some seedlings in the greenhouse for my students to use in their project. They will be choosing a seedling based on parent characteristics that they like, but they are also hoping to pick a seedling that is also increasing (they want to get a double, triple, or mini clump with their first daylily, just like we do ).

Here are some interesting pictures showing seedlings forming new fans as well as some pictures showing the closeness of new fans. I didn't take time to crop any of these, so please forgive the backgrounds and angles.

Regina - Excellent photos of the very early new growth of fans! Wow!

scflowers said: I wonder if they pretty much increase at the same rate each year, given about the same growing conditions, or if they multiply fast, then slow down once established or just continue to multiply until they outcompete themselves.

The fans in a clump will always compete with each other. A daylily grower should expect that they would multiply more quickly when a clump is small and the rate would slow down as the clump becomes larger. Competition for light is something that could only be lessened by dividing a clump. However, competition for water and fertilizer can be reduced if the grower increases the amount of each given to a clump based on the number of fans in the clump; all the fans in a clump share the resources available to the clump.

The rate of increase of fans is quite high in locations such as Florida; Munson considered that the growth and other characteristics were affected if clumps were not divided every year. Presumably he had eight to one increase per year (or better) with his growing conditions and length of growing season.

I noticed the other day that one of my new little seedlings pushed up through the ground with two fans. I only put one seed in the pot. I was interested to see Regina's pictures . My little seedling looks like picture three only much smaller.

I went back and found the photos of my Prairie Blue Eyes on the day it arrived here on March 19, 2015. You can see the two little clusters in the top right.

So after looking at how crowded the clump had become after only one year, I decided to go ahead and dig it up and separate the clump.
Here is a photo of the clump I dug up out of the bog.

Here it is will all the muck washed off.

Here are the divisions
3 divisions with seven fans each.
2 divisionis with six fans each.
1 division with 4 fans.

Another view of the clumps.


Normally I would divide the plant then immediately set it back in the same hole and let it continue on its happy way. But, there were two things with this division that will prevent me from doing that. One is that the fans were so closely grown together there was just no way I could pull them apart without doing some damage. Shown in photos below.




The other reason being those open wounds would be susceptible to rot even in normal soil, and as you can see when I returned to retrieve my spading fork, this is what I found.

So I will put some cornstarch on the wounds, let the plants dry out a day or so, then find a new home somewhere else till the bog hole drains. Rain expected tomorrow!

Wow Larry that plant multiplied fast! I've never had one to increase that quickly over a year. You must be doing something right.

I'd say that about 2% of my seedlings start to increase when they're around pencil-sized at the leaf bases. I've never really tagged them for follow-through to see if they tend to become "weedy" after they've matured. Otherwise, daylilies tend to remain solitary until they produce their first scape. Fast increase is nice until you find yourself digging and dividing a lot of clumps every year. Good for sales, not so good in the long run. I've noticed that the old-line reds seemed to be some of the most rhizomatous daylilies.

With regard to clumps and self-competition, something that happens in the older, larger clumps is that the mass of roots and fans becomes so thick and tight that the soil directly below the clump becomes very dry, seemingly regardless of how much I water. This tends to force the roots to grow near the surface where the soil dries out quicker. It also encourages mole tunneling, and maybe nesting. In heavier soils, the older fans in a clump will tend to push up to the point where the crowns are exposed, which means that they can't really produce new roots.

Just pot up the one you are going to put back in the bog hole until the hole is ready. Then you can just plant the soil ball and the plant will barely know it's being moved again. It obviously likes the bog .

I never heard of cornstarch on the wound, Larry! Thanks for that! Amazingly enough, a couple of my tiny G. Wild daylilies that have just been planted for a month and have shown no scapes are multiplying. I'm going to have to move them soon just to give them space. I'll try to get pictures tomorrow.

Thank you for the nice photo tutorial, Seedfork. I haven't heard of using cornstarch on wounds. I know that cinnamon is sometimes used for that. Does the cornstarch dry the cuts?

I can't for the life of me remember where I read to use corn starch, but yes that is the purpose.

These are teensy G. Wild daylilies that have been planted for less than a month. They're only about 2" high for the biggest ones, but they sure seem to be multiplying fan wise, setting new fans near the parent plants. Weird! This is Ice Palace Pink, Apricot Sparkles and Summer Dawn.

Have there ever been daylilies planted in that bed before?

Nope, Larry, it's always been lawn until I got the bright idea to grow daylilies :-)!

Well, that is strange but it certainly looks to me like they are multiplying already.

Seedfork said:Well, that is strange but it certainly looks to me like they are multiplying already.

It's a first! I'm not crazy!

I took these to show growth of the fans on the seedlings I posted a while back. The first set of photos were taken on 4/2 (post was made with photos on 4/20) and these were taken on 4/26:





It's amazing how fast they grow.