Just got my order in from Maryott's and I'm trying to determine where to put all these beauties. I would like to put a couple of the surprise bonus plants in spots that currently have daylilies with seed pods set on them. If I move those plants to a different location will it kill/damage the seed pods?

I'd like to know that myself. I have a seedling crammed in an 8" tree pot that I would like to pot up into a #2 pot, ASAP. It has several pods on it, though, that I don't want to lose.

I figured it out so that I only have to move one with seed pods. I will let you know @Polymerous how they fare in a couple days.

Thanks, @amberjewel.

@polymerous The rootball should be very tight, so there should be little root disturbance when you remove it from the tree pot. Just plunk it, undisturbed in a larger pot, and keep it wet for a while. (make sure you concentrate the water at the existing root ball)

You might have to go larger than a #2 though, because of the current height of the tree pot. Are you using the thin, black plastic, 4" square tree pots they call "short ones"?

Hi, Ken.

I'm using Stuewes' TP49 "short one" tree pot, which is 4" wide x 9.5" high. https://www.stuewe.com/product...

I have found that their height is about the same as the #2 pots that I am using, but of course the #2 pots are wider. I have already "up" potted some seedlings from these tree pots into the #2 pots. Unfortunately, I have found that the rootball is so tight, that the only way to get the seedling out of the pot is to cut the pot open with wire cutters. (Thus, these pots are something of a "use-once" commodity to me.)

I am using the #2 pots for the "next step" (from either the tree pots or from my "new" seedling bed(s)) seedling evaluation. (This next step is a sanity check for flower form and opening and also for rust resistance.) At this point I don't want to put the seedlings either into the ground (as if I had the space) OR into larger (more space-hogging, unsightly) pots; the #2 pots (on the other hand) fit very nicely into some plastic window box planters on my patio, where the nursery pots are somewhat hidden. I can fit 3 x #2 pots into a box. Since I don't have many seedlings that reach this first step, so far this has worked out. (I fear that may change shortly.)

The TP-49 is a much-used container here, mostly for cycad, Crinum and palm tree seedlings, and they conveniently fit 9 to a milk crate. I've bloomed a few daylily seedlings in them too, but I don't have a lot of confidence that I'm seeing more than about 50% of what the plant can show me. At the top of my list is Stuewe's TP815R, which is a round 8" container 15" tall. I like to use these for selections and named cultivars because they save a lot of space over 5-gallon containers. My favorite seedling container is the TP616, an oversized TP-49 at 6" diameter, 16" tall, and very space-efficient because of the square shape. Seedlings in either of these show representative petal width, branching and rebloom. The problem with the TP616 and TP-49 is that they tend to fall over unless secured, while the TP815R has a wider base and stands on its own very well.

When repotting stubborn, root-bound plants from the TP-49, I soak them overnight in a 5-gallon bucket, then lay them flat and lightly mash them with my foot, which usually either breaks them loose or splits the pot, but I've never done that to a plant with a scape. That might be a two-person operation. If your pods are well-along, the plants will probably accept 25% root damage without dropping the pods. I've broken scapes off which held pods at around 3/4 development and have had the scape mature the seeds if kept in bright, open shade in a bottle of water. The pots are pretty cheap, so cutting them isn't the end of the world either. Daylilies can pull themselves down quite a bit, so once it's out of the pot and the crown is exposed, the root ball might only be 6-7" tall, and it's usually easy to compress and twist the root ball down to where it fits conveniently in a #2 container with plenty of new mix in the bottom.

Thanks very much for your thoughts and recommendations, Ken.

At one time (come to think on it, over 16 years ago, now) I used to grow seedlings in the small 4" pots, at least until first bloom, so tree pots were a step up for me. Since I mostly (not entirely) am trying to hybridize for polymerous daylilies, at that time that small 4" pots allowed me to maximize the number of seedlings I could grow per square foot, while still being able to tell if the seedling was poly (to any degree) or not. (My feeling is that if a plant is going to poly to any significant degree, it is going to do so regardless of how much soil it is living in. I could be wrong, though.)

The first tree pot that I used was actually one with the same 4" diameter as the TP-49, but much taller. (I don't recall the number and may not have bought it from Stuewe.) I didn't like the taller tree pots; they were very unstable and needed crates to hold them up, and having tried the crates, I didn't like them, either.

I decided to try the TP-49 as a compromise, and actually bought several of TRAY6 (6" deep tray, 15.75" square) to hold them, but I didn't like that setup much better than I did the crate. Both the trays and the crates are unsightly in the garden, you have to place them where they can drain directly on dirt (so you can't put them on the patio or any other hardscape), and also I really prefer to have something with a "drip tray" function to hold my daylily pots. (I feel, rightly or wrongly, that the potted daylily will soak up whatever drippings are there; also the use of drip trays or saucers allows you to place the plants on hardscape.)

I tried putting the TP-49 pots into one of those under-the-bed clothes storage plastic containers, and that worked, sort of, for a season or two; I could fit 20 of the TP-49s into one of those. (Again, I was trying to maximize the density. This was before we built my seedling bed(s).) Unfortunately, those plastic containers were not designed for outdoor conditions (primarily UV light), so they got brittle and fell apart.

What I am doing this season (for those seedlings not in the beds) is using large plastic rectangular flower boxes to hold either the TP-49s or the potted up (for another look) #2 pot seedlings. (These flower boxes are on my patio, so they have to look good, too. The tops of both the TP-49 pots and the #2 pots are even with or below the top of the patio box, so the box hides them nicely.) I can fit 10 of the TP-49s or 3 of the #2 containers into a flower box, and the box supports the TP-49s fine, as long as all 10 pots are in there. The boxes come with areas where you can punch out holes (and you can buy drainage trays), but I have left the holes intact and just put some gravel in the bottom of the boxes for drainage. (Of course, this means that during the rainy season you have to get out there and tip the boxes to get all of the excess water out!)

Now, whether or not a seedling can "be all that it can be" in those pots is another question, and I am glad to have your input on that. I think that if the seedling is going to poly to any degree, it will show it in those TP-49 pots, but I was skeptical about the bloom size, bud count, branching, and rebloom. This season I have had 2 seedlings in the TP-49 present their flowers as mini blooms, when I would not have predicted such. I have, however, had at least two seedlings rebloom in those TP-49 pots, so it is possible; whether every seedling capable of rebloom will do so in those pots is another question. It is also unclear (given our cooler nights and the cool weather at the beginning of the season) how - or if - being in the smaller pots affects the bloom's ability to open. (I have seen some opening problems during the warmer peak season, so I don't know if the problem was inherent to those particular seedlings or an artifact of the pot.) I have also found it harder to weed and fertilize those tree pots, than the larger cross-section #2 pots.

At any rate, I will give your suggestions for better seedling containers consideration. I do have to fit them into something, even the round pot, both to corral them and also to prettify the seedling ghetto. (The cosmetic function is necessary, as the part of my garden with the maximum sunlight happens to be my patio and the landscaped area around it, so good looks are important.) I have no doubt that even with my few seedling beds, I will still be growing some seedlings in containers, even before selection. (I am not only doing polys... that has mostly been a challenge, and I have found that I really need the positive reward of the small successes that come from making other crosses, to keep me going.)

Regarding prizing the scaped seedling out of the pot... it is good to know that if one of the scapes breaks, the seeds may still be recoverable. Thanks for that tip! However, while I can try your stomping-on-the-soaked pot trick with the non-scaped seedlings, I think that I am going to resort to the wire cutters for the pot with the scapes (4 of them in that TP-49!). My big concern is that I am going to end up snapping a pod or two off in the process (not just merely breaking a scape), no matter how careful I am; I am hoping that cutting the pot will minimize the chances of that happening. (Maybe I should also tie all the scapes together for this procedure, and wrap a scarf or something around the pods to protect them...)

At any rate I may not get to this operation for a couple of days... there are (way too many other) things to do, places to go, and my knee and shoulder have been complaining about the gardening lately.

@Califlowers - Ken, I tried your un-potting trick with some of the TP-49 potted seedlings, ones that I was going to get rid of anyway. I laid them on their sides for a couple of days to dry out a bit (they were already (and constantly) pretty wet from my window boxes, and there was no budging the seedlings loose, so I thought that "dry" might be the way to go), then today I stomped on them a bit and rolled them around with my foot. The seedlings came out like a dream, and the pots were undamaged! Thank you!

My seedling with the pods actually had some of the pods mature enough to harvest, so I took those few precious seeds (I always have lousy seed set on tets), and now I have fewer pods I will need to protect. I probably still won't get to the job for a couple of days, but at least I won't have to cut the seedling out of its pot!

I thought I would update this thread. I moved the plant and it fared well after the move. I just left the rootball with all its dirt intact and put it in a new hole with a different location. I recently harvested the 5 pods that were on the plant and got 20+ good seeds from it.

@Polymerous, sorry it took me so long to update this.

Well, we both succeeded in our seedling moves, and in harvesting our pods - that's the main thing!

In late summer when still hot here I successfully moved a plant SEDUCTOR with a pod. Had to disturb the roots a lot since I was digging out of rocks and clay so extra important to water it well for a day or so beforehand. That way the plant is charged with water so root damage is less critical. Also moving on a non windy or non blast furnace day increases the chances of it not missing a beat. Then don't overwater and keep out of strong sun. I find that unless a plant looks really weak, then transplanting or repotting often makes a growth spurt. Except for when I planted one too deep and it rotted soon after.

But I am still amazed at the difference in vigour between my cultivars. Some tiny stressed plants soon become like giant leeks while others stay small thin things for months.