On August 20 (left photo)this was 'Fritz Schroer' and on September 11 (right photo), it had progressed to this. It's already grown more. They will break the summer/heat dormancy rapidly if they get moved into the shade, soaked and set in a tub that will hold some water (e.g. bottom photo).



I do like those cattle tubs. Some are scheduled to have holes drilled for use as a large planter, but they are so useful for other things like hauling off debris, catching rain run-off, soaking a big clay pot that's gotten to dry. I'm always finding a use for them. The smaller black rubber tubs just get borrowed from the cattle when they are not using them there .

However, I had rot - crown rot, I assume - get in two plants. Not sure why, but it may have been they got too dry and then when they got watered it took off. The clumps this year were big and healthy for the early part of summer (one was a superior performer with multiple rebloom cycles), but I lost one completely and am down to the last fan on another. I'm not having much luck salvaging them when a daylily comes down with rot. I start out with multiple fans that still look good, but they gradually get mushy. My method has been to dump the container and separate out any healthy appearing growth; give those a bleach water soak; let them dry for several days and then re-pot them separately. That has worked once last spring on a new clump that arrived, but even there just barely. How do some of you folks do it if you have a clump with rot?

It looks like the potting soil dried out inside and the plant collapsed in the heat. A few years ago I had a sprinkler system go bad on me right in the middle of summer during an extended absence, and had quite a few daylilies do this. I think that a lot of the fans simply "stall" and die, and that's that. I did the same thing you did and managed to save a fan here and there, but many of them were lost.

Potting soils are notorious for drying out and being difficult to re-wet. In terracotta pots, I like to mix potting soil with good garden soil 50-50 in the bottom half, (if the garden soil is heavy clay, I use less, like 80-20.) top that with an inch of potting mix and scratch it in lightly, then fill/plant with potting mix. It gives the plants a moisture reservoir, re-wets better, and the garden soil doesn't go chalk-dry overnight like potting soil can. I've also lined the top half of them with plastic, and that helps too.

Donald-- do you have screens over the bottom holes? I have found pill bugs and earwigs to cause problems. I find a daylily with rot has an overabundance of them. When a daylily starts with rot pull it out of the pot and look for insects. Then I use hydrogen peroxide rinses. I learned that from Becky who had to do that to her clematis that had rot. The other solution I have used is baking soda. The other items I have wondered about is cinnamon, aspirin, Listerine and comet cleanser. Those come from other plant remedies. Comet and bleach would be at the bottom of my list to try. But I would use either comet or bleach to clean the pot before using it again. I have found in my area here that pots want to be bottomed watered. It seems to me that daylilies like water on the leaves or roots, but not on the crown. Too much water from above when they want to be heat dormant causes me the most problems. Terra cotta can be a problem, too. Terra cotta actually holds in water when the pot is evenly moist. When it dries out completely, it becomes a baker. Once it has dried out, without bottom watering or watering it heavily every couple of hours it's hard to evenly redistribute the water in the Terra itself and then the soil in the pot is unevenly watered. Many blessings for successful answers. May joy be found at your home!

I have had problems for years with crown rot, I lose several every summer. Sometimes small clumps that just never took off, I can understand those. That has been what has happened mostly this year. I have lost large, apparently healthy clumps to crown rot though. One thing I've observed, they have tended to be plants that had an exceptionally good blooming year. Almost as if they bloomed themselves out. I've never been able determine the cause, rarely see insects. Mine are grown in the ground though. I have plants that are like your first plant, go dormant after flowering, but come back nicely with rain & cooler weather. Not that any of this is any help to you, but I feel your pain!

I've lost two seedlings to rot this year, and these were seedlings that were grown in black plastic pots, in the sun, for a few years now. One of them was gone before I could save it; the second one was subjected to various drastic measures (including bleach and H2O2) and I thought that I had saved the last fan (out of about 6), but just discovered yesterday that it was gone, too (this, after being repotted in a new pot, with new soil, in the shade).

To top it all off, today I noticed a loss of a fan (to what looks like rot) on a different seedling (also black plastic pot, also grown in such for a few years). What the heck?!!

If I could grow all of these seedlings in the ground, I would. But some, of necessity, have to go into pots. (Now I'm afraid to dig some possible volunteer seedlings, because if I pot them... will they rot, too?)

I too have found some dying of crown rot. I am now thinking that I may have either planted them too deep or they have pulled themselves down into the ground/pot by their root growth and developed crown rot because of the moisture over the crown. It's the constant drying out and then watering, drying out and then watering ..... I think that may be what is causing the problem.

The bed I made using pine fines has had no problems. It has good drainage because of the pine fines. So I am beginning to believe that the crown rot issue to be a drainage problem. I think what confuses me is that everyone writes how much daylilies love water. And it is true. But I think it is HOW they are getting water that may be the problem. Rain water they love. Well water, not as much. Pine fines seems to be the answer for me here where I live. It keeps the ground/potting mix cooler by retaining some slight moisture, but doesn't allow it to become water-logged. That is just my thoughts on this aggravating issue.

And I so understand how discouraging it can be to lose a prized seedling or cultivar. I lost one this year and am still pretty upset by the loss. It was the only one I had at the time that I was evaluating for possible registering and naming.

Same thing happened here with losses from crown rot. I lost Scandinavia
I also lost a 4 year old seedling that was going to be named and registered. It had 25 or more bud stalks this year and I noticed in August some of them started looking bad. The plant was in a low spot where it stayed too wet. I dug it and tried to save some of it. It was 40 or 50 fans but all died. I also lost another seedling that I was going to register after I moved it from the place it grew for 3 years. This one rebloomed all summer and I set a few pods on it. It was unique and I don't have anything else like it.

This was going to be a 2016 or 17 intro but looks like it is gone.

Oh that is such a bummer, Terry! What a beautiful bloom.

This is my seedling that I was excited about, but crown rot got it before I realized it. It was my avatar last year. I was planning to name it after my sister. It was such a shock to lose it! Now I am more guarded with any possible intros because I am all too familiar with how things like this could happen.

What a loss, both of those are such beautiful daylilies, and irreplaceable. I will start keeping a closer eye & make sure I'm not planting too deep. Although a few of mine that I have lost were mature clumps that had been in place for years. I use pine needles to mulch.

Daylilies do have a tendency to pull themselves down especially as large clumps. I have had it happen in my yard years ago with some unknown yellow daylily that came back year after year until it finally disappeared. At the time, I did not know about crown rot and that I should have dug it up and replanted it closer to the surface of the soil. So it could very well be happening to some of the plants members here have lost.

Sorry for your losses of your hoped-for registrations.

What really gets me about that one seedling is the heroic efforts that I went through to save it. I was sure that I DID save that last fan, which I repotted, IN THE SHADE, with a mixture of planting mix, vermiculite, and fine redwood chips (we don't have pine fines here). Yet still, it died. And while it would never have been a registration, it was a hoped-for bridge plant to a polymerous daylily. (And the other seedling that died before I knew what was going on, was of course a polymerous one. )

I have been trying to reconstruct what things I might have done wrong. Fertilizing in the summer? A change in fertilizers? (This year I have been using Miracle-Gro's all-purpose time release fertilizer, with some alfalfa meal and also some supplemental liquid fertilizing.I don't recall what I used last year, but prior to last year it was Osmocote.)

Right now I have seeds from that hoped-for bridge plant, and I am wondering if I should just chuck them...

Oh no! I would sow them and see what you get.

I was thinking the same thing .... that maybe the cross wasn't a good one since I have lost all the siblings but one. I did a cross using some of the siblings with each other as well as with other cultivars/seedling parents. I am not going to chuck them, I plan to grow them out to see what happens. All info is good whether the plants survive or not.

I have written about this elsewhere. My seedlings can be up to 9-10" and luxurious. Then they just topple over because no roots are attached anymore. These topples all occur in a raised bed that has been a very successful vegetable garden. Recently, I might have saved at least 2 from nearly 30-odd topples by treating them similar to proliferations: trimming the leaves and putting them back in soil - elsewhere.

The experience has been disconcerting and it continues. At the moment, I am watching three about to flower for the first time. I can see, however, they will topple soon just be feeling how wobbly they are in the soil.

Glen, that is awful! Thirty seems like a huge number to just topple over. Have you got photos? Are there any roots or crowns left in the soil? If you dug and moved them as soon as you noticed they were feeling wobbly do you think it might help to save them? Hope you discover the cause and find a solution fast!

I do have a story of loss and recovery for what will likely be a 2017 introduction. Late last summer, I made a bed in the pasture and moved some seedlings, 12-230 included. Someone left a gate open and 100 head of sheep got in the new area. The plants had just been put in the ground and they pulled them all up, trying to eat the tops. Several hours later, when I got home from work, the sheep had just been put up but the plants were lying around the pasture. I picked them up and stuck them back in the ground. It looks like most survived and the one on the watch list did the best of all. It had to bloom this year for me to know where it ended up. It was the only one of them to bloom.

CaliFlowers said:It looks like the potting soil dried out inside and the plant collapsed in the heat. A few years ago I had a sprinkler system go bad on me right in the middle of summer during an extended absence, and had quite a few daylilies do this. I think that a lot of the fans simply "stall" and die, and that's that. I did the same thing you did and managed to save a fan here and there, but many of them were lost.

Potting soils are notorious for drying out and being difficult to re-wet. In terracotta pots, I like to mix potting soil with good garden soil 50-50 in the bottom half, (if the garden soil is heavy clay, I use less, like 80-20.) top that with an inch of potting mix and scratch it in lightly, then fill/plant with potting mix. It gives the plants a moisture reservoir, re-wets better, and the garden soil doesn't go chalk-dry overnight like potting soil can. I've also lined the top half of them with plastic, and that helps too.

I'll have to try the method of using some garden soil in the bottom of the pot. On some large plastic containers where I've had to drill holes for drainage, I've drilled about 1" above the bottom instead of directly through the bottom.

However, I haven't lost (yet) any daylilies from letting them go dormant. And the summer dormant stage is finished here this year. Everything looks great at the moment. The two that developed rot were still actively growing and still receiving regular supplemental water. One was probably beginning to go toward summer dormancy because it had just finished bloom. One was in a terra cotta container, the other in a plastic, fake whiskey/wine barrel container. I'm just not sure what circumstances are causing it to occur. I don't think either of these had pulled down too low since both had the soil replenished in spring and I elevate the crown when I do that. They looked okay in that respect. I think the heat I have may cause some fan damage at the soil line and then that combined with moisture allows bacterial rot to establish and spread into the plant. I'm not sure I can ever totally prevent that if I'm right.

Altheabyanothername said:Donald-- do you have screens over the bottom holes? I have found pill bugs and earwigs to cause problems. I find a daylily with rot has an overabundance of them. When a daylily starts with rot pull it out of the pot and look for insects. Then I use hydrogen peroxide rinses. I learned that from Becky who had to do that to her clematis that had rot. The other solution I have used is baking soda. The other items I have wondered about is cinnamon, aspirin, Listerine and comet cleanser. Those come from other plant remedies. Comet and bleach would be at the bottom of my list to try. But I would use either comet or bleach to clean the pot before using it again. I have found in my area here that pots want to be bottomed watered. It seems to me that daylilies like water on the leaves or roots, but not on the crown. Too much water from above when they want to be heat dormant causes me the most problems. Terra cotta can be a problem, too. Terra cotta actually holds in water when the pot is evenly moist. When it dries out completely, it becomes a baker. Once it has dried out, without bottom watering or watering it heavily every couple of hours it's hard to evenly redistribute the water in the Terra itself and then the soil in the pot is unevenly watered. Many blessings for successful answers. May joy be found at your home!

I haven't tried the hydrogen peroxide. If I have another plant get rot, I'll have to try that. I'd used the bleach water/drying method on other plants with some success, but their underground structures probably lent themselves to. I have found letting them dry can do it sometimes without anything else, but I think the drying time for it to be effective would be too long for a daylily. I think a daylily might allow the bacteria to spread rapidly, making it hard to salvage any piece of it that isn't already infected.

I haven't noticed an excess of insects in the soil except fire ants. I think I need screens or something to keep them out. I can't always tell they are in the containers until I'm working with them. They really seem to love getting into them and I manage to end up having my hands worked over before I know they are there. Very aggravating

I have a very sad history with plastic containers, so I very much tend to prefer terra cotta. Daylilies, though, are proving to be an exception in that so far they have done quite well in plastic containers. Well enough that I've started to not shy away from a large plastic container if it's going to be used for a daylily. Heavier containers help with the windy conditions and aren't as inclined to tip over. So far the plant profile for a daylily hasn't been a problem except in a few of the 3 gal nursery pots. Even those haven't blown over too badly. If they are large enough, the soil will keep them heavy enough to not blow over with a daylily. I've had to anchor or half bury really heavy and large terra cotta containers to keep them stable when the plant has a tall profile. It's amazing, really, considering how heavy the containers are.

Polymerous said:
What really gets me about that one seedling is the heroic efforts that I went through to save it. I was sure that I DID save that last fan, which I repotted, IN THE SHADE, with a mixture of planting mix, vermiculite, and fine redwood chips (we don't have pine fines here). Yet still, it died........

I have been trying to reconstruct what things I might have done wrong. Fertilizing in the summer? A change in fertilizers? (This year I have been using Miracle-Gro's all-purpose time release fertilizer, with some alfalfa meal and also some supplemental liquid fertilizing.I don't recall what I used last year, but prior to last year it was Osmocote.)

Right now I have seeds from that hoped-for bridge plant, and I am wondering if I should just chuck them...

Same here. I had a piece that was growing really well for almost a month and I thought I'd successfully salvaged some of the plant. Then it just cratered. And I've been trying to determine what may be causing it. My fear is that it's going to be an unavoidable combination of heat and moisture. I've also wondered if some cultivars might be more susceptible than others, but I'm doubtful there are any studies. Best case there would be other folks' experiences. If a cultivar showed a tendency to get rot over a wide range of growing conditions among a number of growers, it might indicate that cultivar had low resistance. I doubt the numbers are available to establish that. I'd plant the seeds :).

Is the rot the Erwinia bacteria? It sure smells like it.

@needrain -- you said something that started me thinking--about drying daylilies. If the affected daylily was treated, rather than repotted, dried.
In box stores they sell "dried" daylilies. Roots with a little bit of crown.
All completely brown. How do they do that? How much drying can one take? After treating leave the daylily alone. Let it dry and when it is time to replant soak with a little hydrogen peroxide water. Trying to make sure there is no reoccurrance of rot. Just a wild thought. Could drying help? Does anyone know about the bagged big box stores bareroot? Many blessings for a fantastic week!

I have always thought it might be nice to live in a more southern area where you can garden all year, but after reading about your problems, I think I will stay here! I dig out daylilies by the
truckloads and purposely try to kill them, and even after laying on top of the ground in baking sun and then through the freezing winter, they still grow when spring arrives. I haven't ever lost
a daylily. Even full evergreens at -25 come back just fine. My heart goes out to you though. There were pix of some nice looking seedlings. That must really hurt!