We have been impatient with purchases but mostly plants and not so much seeds since it takes 2 years to bloom from seed. We have hundreds of seedlings growing from seeds purchased on the LA. but now make so many seeds in our gardens that we don't need to buy any. I think the LA is the best source for seeds as you have the most choice and variety. There are many sellers and you will find different experience depending on who you buy from. It was a good way for us to add genetics and learn about growing and handling seeds.

Leslie, we planted directly out of the pods this year and have about 1500 seedlings growing. We don't think all seeds can be handled the same. We found drying or chilling did not work for some as the seeds shriveled and looked very bad. Past experience is that these seeds were killed in the process. We have a fridge full of seeds as well. Anyone have thoughts or experience? Seeds from some evergreen tets that Ashton used both for pod and pollen parents did not appear to be ok with drying or chilling.
Mythical Art, Stenciled Infusion, Little Ripper, Waves of Joy, and a few others, were directly planted out of the pods. I also have lots of dip seeds growing with no drying or chilling. One thing that was unusual this season is the large number of seeds that were sprouted in the pods. I have never seen so many with tiny white sprouts and some with extended roots when harvested.

Josieskid, I wouldn't worry about your seeds freezing in the mail. I have been shipping seeds all winter for the last l0 years and I have never had one customer tell me that their seeds arrived frozen. And, a large portion of the seeds that I shipped, went to Canada.

Cindy, thank you so much for making me feel better. I just received the notice this morning that my seeds have been shipped! I don't know where they're coming from, but at least they won't die from the cold. What a relief.

Kidfishing, you reminded me of the tomatoes I grew years ago. They were named Longkeeper, because you grew them late, picked them green, and let them ripen slowly during the winter for fresh sliced tomatoes. They were delicious. Then, towards New Years, you could find tiny green plants inside the tomato. I just dug them out and sliced as usual!

I have an area in an old garden that I'm now reclaiming. I used to call it the nursery. I didn't mulch or pull weeds there, just mowed once in a while. I liked to walk through there and dig up baby hosta, euphorbia, campanula, etc. But never found babies from the only daylilies I owned. Bought probably 15 or 20 years ago. I've found pods with seed in them on a couple of plants. Which I can't remember their name. But, over the years, shouldn't they have grown there, next to their mom?

Another one I bought, which was supposed to be to be Fairy Tale Pink (purchased 2 or 3 times, still don't have it.) flowers a beautiful deep red, but never a pod.

So, what I'm gonna do, when I start hybridizing, like you, Kidfishing, I'm gonna start the seeds right away in pots. Just a few!

Kidfishing, it sounds like you could lose a lot of seeds due to storage issues. That would be heartbreaking. Do you have time for keeping a record of which ones don't like to be chilled or dried? Is that why you now just go ahead and sow them?

I've been reading such strange things about daylilies here and on the net that my head could spin. Stuff about hidden buds on the scapes, cutting the scapes to finish the pods in a bucket of water, picking the pods off while they are still green, and now baby plants inside the pods. What next?

josieskid said:

Another one I bought, which was supposed to be to be Fairy Tale Pink (purchased 2 or 3 times, still don't have it.) flowers a beautiful deep red, but never a pod.

I do grow the correct plant of Fairy Tale Pink. If you want a double fan of it, glad to send you for postage (as long as you don't live in restricted states). Though there is Pink in the name, the color is more peach.

We have thousands of seeds in our fridge. We have packed and stored seeds this way for 8 years and have very good seeds and high germination rates. We have planted 4 year old seeds that were cold stored and they germinated just fine.
What I am saying is that we continue to discover that nothing works all the time. There seems to be some genetic differences that may require the proper handling of some daylily seeds. I was hoping that there were people on here who have experience to share.
We know many of our seed parent plants can have seed dried and chilled and planted whenever you want, even a couple of years after harvest. We also think from experience that seeds from other parent plants do not handle the dry or chill process when using dry chilling for the seeds. Moist chilling will most likely work fine for these seeds, however they can be planted with no dry or chill taking place and will sprout within days.
Most of these are from evergreen parents however in our experiment, only very few dormant crosses failed to sprout within a week or two.
The only disappointment I experienced in direct sowing at harvest is seeds that looked perfectly good from Green Rainbow where I did not get any germination. I think I should have chilled these seeds.

Very interesting! I've not heard of anyone direct sowing before. I'd think it would do much better for evergreens.

Karen, you doll! Do you really mean it? I've wanted that daylily for so many years! I got hooked on hostas and hydrangeas, bought locally, and got tired of buying mislabeled daylilies. Then when I started buying plants online this year, I ordered some daylilies. You can't get any fancy ones around here, so when my Emerald Bay bloomed just a couple weeks ago, and I touched it for the first time, I about fell over! It was like thick plastic!

I can't tell, Josieskid...so is 'Emerald Bay' a great one or not so good??

" You can't get any fancy ones around here, so when my Emerald Bay bloomed just a couple weeks ago, and I touched it for the first time, I about fell over! It was like thick plastic!"

I think Emerald Bay is wonderful, Barbalee. (I love your name. I have a sister named Barbara.)

Leslie Renee is Emerald Bays beautiful mother. Sweet Cotton Candy (!) is one of her child plants. If you go look at pics on her page in the database, Emerald Bay cannot take a bad picture in anyone's garden.

She could maybe have a bigger bloom, but look at this -
Bud Count: 26-30
31-35
Branching: 5-way

And with rebloom, that's alotta pretty!

beckygardener said: I'd have to agree that Terry and Ashton might one day be well-known daylily hybridizers! They certainly are on the right course to do so.

Thank you for agreeing with me, Becky! I read your gardening ideas and your blog this past summer. You are a gifted writer. I think you help a lot of people.

Barbalee, I just checked, and Emerald Bay bloomed last month for me, so more like 6 weeks ago. What was also shocking, she was among three cultivars that bloomed shortly after being shipped and planted here.

I let em! I actually took Emerald Bay's pollen and froze it! My first time!

Hi Robin and Stan! Thank you for welcoming me!

josieskid said: And with rebloom, that's alotta pretty!

I always want "alotta pretty!"

Kidfishing, I had trouble getting to sleep last night, and I kept thinking about what you said about dry chilling and moist chilling. By this, do you mean keeping seeds dry or moist throughout the entire time that they are kept stored? Wouldn't being moist encourage them to germinate in storage?

Also, I thought I had a great idea! I was thinking how nice it would be if the hybridyzer would put on the database page their observations of how a cultivars seeds perform under certain conditions. You know how they list how tall, how many branches, etc...

Except that they would have no idea who you would cross their plant with. And that might change things up.

In other words, it still sounds like a crap shoot.

No need losing sleep over this.
Prominent hybridizers have methods that they use. Not all are the same and it could depend on their growing zone. We have been fortunate through our daylily meetings and travels to have been given details from a few of these successful people. I know multiple hybridizers who go from pod to moist vermiculite in the fridge. I know hybridizers who have never refridgerated a seed, they just plant them. There are some who dry the seeds and then go to dry chill in the fridge.
If you are hybridizing, the method you choose may simply be to work with your planting schedule.

If you harvest and direct plant the seeds you would need to have time for them to establish before winter (in cold areas) or you would need a place to allow them to overwinter in a protected area. (like a greenhouse)
If you moist chill seeds, you need to be able to plant within 6 weeks of harvest. They should be sprouting and need planted.
If you dry chill your seeds you are not restricted to any particular calendar. You can plant the seeds whenever you want.
We have chosen dry chill since we make 10,000 seeds and want to be able to choose when and how we start them. We have started some of our seeds outside the spring after harvest. To do this, seeds need to be kept for 8-10 months before planting.
I doubt there has been any type of research to be able to determine what we have observed in seed handling.

josieskid said:

Thank you for agreeing with me, Becky! I read your gardening ideas and your blog this past summer. You are a gifted writer. I think you help a lot of people.

Thank you! I think you may be over-estimating my worth in writing, but I appreciate that you enjoyed my articles.

So they do germinate in the fridge as long as they stay moist? Do you keep the temp set like in a regular kitchen fridge? At like 35 - 38 degrees or so? And a daylily seed will germinate that way?

It sounds like you can have so much control over the process. But none if they are sprouting in the pod. Boy, I'd pay money to see a pic of that!

josieskid said:So they do germinate in the fridge as long as they stay moist? Do you keep the temp set like in a regular kitchen fridge? At like 35 - 38 degrees or so? And a daylily seed will germinate that way?

I'm pretty sure that most of the refrigerators which are storing daylily seeds are regular kitchen fridges.

A lot of gardening advice is region-specific. If you include some general information regarding your region and climate zone in your header, you'll receive better information.

Daylily seeds won't usually try to sprout in storage unless they're wet.
I store seed in small manila coin envelopes, placed inside ZipLoc baggies. Many daylily seeds require stratification in order to sprout, and since it's hard to predict which ones will, I stratify them all. Cold stratification requires moisture and at least 3-4 weeks of cold temperatures, and they'll frequently sprout in their envelopes a few weeks after that. It's a very slow process because of the cold, so a weekly check will suffice. Try not to disturb them too much, because if the seed envelopes have been consistently oriented, you'll find that the seeds will sprouting uniformly, with a small root emerging in a downward direction. Many of them will also have a 1/2"–3/4" white leaf growing upward, which serves as a fine planting handle. If the bags of envelopes are tossed around in the fridge, you'll have roots and sprouts going every direction.
This is my favorite stage of growth to plant. It's fast, easy, and you won't have a lot of bare spots in the pots because of unsprouted seeds. The leaves will green up within a couple of days after planting.

If you sow outside in the fall, you will greatly reduce the complexity of the operation. Nature will supply the moisture and the cold, all you have to do is protect them from critters and other disturbances such as excessive rain, which might wash the seeds away. Climate plays a huge role in this method though, so it will need to be tailored to your conditions.

I usually plant 8-12 seeds to a 3.5" pot, to conserve planting mix as well as growing space, which is precious under lights. If they're well fed and never allowed to dry, (saucers or trays required) they'll probably be OK like that until planting time, which would usually be around June. If you started them very early, and they're really big & crowded, you can shift them to a larger pot, but they're ready to line out into beds when they're the size of a pencil at the base of the leaves.

Ken

Josie - Please don't get rid of your hostas and hydrangeas!!! I only have .25 acres and I have managed to fit in about 400 daylilies. I am pretty new to daylilies so I only have a few established clumps, so when they start expanding, I will have to give some of them up, but I have some shady sections with large evergreen trees and you cannot grow daylilies under them, so you still need hydrangeas and hostas. I have 4 hydrageas and probably about 50 hostas (30 different and some clumps of the same ones that line a pathway. You would miss them! Of course I have the most daylilies of any other plant and we are running out of grass, but that was our plan all along. You have an acre! I wish! You can fit hundreds of daylilies.