I think the whole country has gone from unseasonably mild weather to bitter cold. We are supposed to get to around 17 tonight in Middle TN. My dormants had already started putting up foliage, maybe a couple of inches. I went put and pulled mulch over them, but I know they will still freeze at these low temps. It just makes me feel better about doing something. I have way too many to try to cover all the daylilies. What will happen to the dormants? Will it really set them back since they had already put up new foliage? What do you do or not do?

I think recovering them is the best thing you can do. I wonder, but I don't know.....but since they rhizome will probably not be killed off that they may be ok after a setback.

Maybe?

Hi Ann, I've been a busy bee today and even got my DH to volunteer to help/ He knows how hard I've worked with my daylilies this whole fall and winter. I've got about 1500 or more pots of dayliles. All but about 300 of them are covered with something.

DH had been given 8 11x22 shade tarps about 2 weeks ago. The man that had them, just wanted them gone!! They are all in excellant shape. We had them stacked up outside just waiting to be used this summer. WELLLLL, I had put empty pots over about 200 pots and DH asked if the shade tarps would help. I don't know if they will or not. I wasn't going to cover the other pots anyway, so if they don't work, oh well, we just spent about an hour putting them over about 800 pots with nothing to lose and maybe it will protect those 800 pots just a little bit.

Most of my plants had damage from earlier freezes to the outside 3 or 4 leaves with the inner leaves still green and most of the inner leaves have started to grow. Some plants were as much as a foot tall but most were about 6-8". I had about 10 that I took into the greenhouse plus I already have about 25 in there that were babies bought last fall that have been growing really good. That's also were I have the 450 cups of seeds. I have 78 that have germinated with about 40 of them maybe 4"tall. The only heat in there are 6 heat bulbs. When I came inside about 9pm it was 32 inside the Gh and 23 out front where the wireless temp gage is. I'm probably losing the battle, but atleast I feel like I've done as much as possible with what I have.

It's supposed to get down to 18-20 here tonight and again tomorrow night. It may get up to 40 tomorrow. This is the coldest spell that we've had this winter. I'd like to hope it'll be the last too, but I wouldn't bet the farm on that statement. We've had lows 20's here in April and that same year we had 80 in March!!

One thing that I can say with certainty is that now one knows what our weather will do next. I think most people all over the USA are having the same freaky weather just like Ann said. We never know.

Anyway, I'm done of the day. Blessings to all, Mona

Ann, I'm concerned about the plants also. I did not put any
extra mulch on them today, but I think I will tomorrow, since
we will have another night of this. Once we had a hard freeze
in April for about a week. That time we covered them with
buckets lined with straw each night, and they did fine, but have too many to do that
now, or with any other coverings.

Then again, the plants have surprised me in the past. Hardy little
critters they are.

The dormants are up here about 1.5 to 2 inches also. I was more
concerned about the evergreens which have decided to grow more.
I thought maybe the dormants would fair better. Guess we will soon know.
Our temps are to be 12 to 13 with wind chill in the low single digits.

Just checked past night temp stats. We had 13 degrees one
night in January, and the plants, even dormants were showing green.
They survived that one, so maybe they will be okay this time.

The weather guessers had said we would get to 19 but its 26 this morning and they have said 25 for tonight. The wind blew all night so I don't expect much frost damage. I was more concerned about my watering system than the daylilies so I drained all of them yesterday. I did bring five pots of daylilies into the house that I had just potted a few days ago for Michele, Kim and James Hall.
I do not think this late cold weather will set them back much, it may delay the bloom a few days at most. The tops may look ragged but its the stuff below ground thats doing all the work.

I'll find out today when I go to James' how the daylilies faired. It got down to 26 last night; it's 29 right now (but feels like 21 it says). Supposed to be 32 tonight. If there is ever any frost James will turn the sprinklers on to wash it off to help keep from having as much damage.

I went outside about 11pm last night and it was 32in my GH. I left the lights on overnight but it probably didn't make a lot of difference. Everything in th GH this morning was in great shape. I went out there at noon and it was 64 degrees in there but only 33 outside. This amazing sunshine sure does make a huge difference!!

I checked on the outside stuff. Everything that was covered is in good shape. Nothing damaged that I could see. I had a couple of hundred pots that didnt get any cover. About half of them had damage. The leaves were turning that darker green waxy looking color they get when they have cold damage. It wasn't an immediate frozen mush but I figure after tonight they will pretty much die back.

I'm very thankful for the sunshine today. It will make the difference in alot of stuff getting damaged and not much damage to everything. It's been so cloudly the last week that it's a true blessing!!

I hope everyone had a warm night last night inside atleast. It's a good thing that daylilies are tuff plants. I guess that's one reason we all love them so much.

Blessings to all, Mona

Well, the daylilies look great, no damage at all. The only reason is there was no frost because it was windy. Hopefully tonight will be windy as well.

I hope everyone else's made out ok.

The wind was our saving grace last night as far as the daylilies are concerned, I hope. We have been gone all day and have not had a chance to do an inspection. Tonight is be low of 21 with no wind. I expect more damage to the foliage tonight, since we will not have the wind to keep the frost off. The beautiful camellia blooms are toast.

It didn't get as cold as forecasted; 16 instead of 12 or 13, but some damage it did anyway.
The clumps of EVs that are about 7 inches tall had white tips, and some outside fans were
the dark green shiny color. Inside fans faired better. The dormants seemed okay.
There was a light dusting of snow this morning, and plenty of wind last night.

Don't know how many times they can come through okay if the weather continues the
freeze/grow thingy. We have another warming up period in a couple of days. This is
one strange climate this year.

Supposed to be 16 tonight, with some wind, which will make it even colder. I did rake
some more mulch around them today. Now with it warming up, especially if it rains, will
need to rake it back away from them. They might be more prone to rot with the extra mulch,
rain, and warmer temps.

Aah, the joys of gardening.

I out some extra mulch on most of my plants last night . But,the wind had other ideas

Got down to 17 and still is only about 35 but,sunny ..The only plant that is making me nervious
is my tree Rose "Bob" there is no way of bundling him up with all those thorns..
I re-snuggled my daylilies before work this morning..I will check everyone when I get home tonight
and re-snuggle again

Since it is still winter here, and cold weather is expected - I am just letting things go. Our snow cover is not as good as other years, and some stuff is still mulched, but other stuff is now "un-mulched" after a winter of windy days.

I am just plain ol' not peeking until spring arrives in May. Or April, or June - who knows WHEN it will come this year! ~Jan

I walked around outside for a few minutes earlier today. The daylilies are looking OK. Even the evergreens appear to be unaffected by the cold temperatures. Many of our evergreens and semievergreens were recently been cut back just above the ground and had not had time to put out much new growth. Those not yet cut back look OK. All except for one new bed put in late fall/early winter are mulched with pinestraw. The daylilies in the new unmulched bed have alfalfa pellets in the bottom of the holes, so the alfalfa should help keep the roots warm. (I throw a little soil over the alfalfa to keep the roots from having direct contact with the pellets.) The camellia blooms low to the ground were not affected by the cold.

Hi Doris, I see where you put alfalfa pellets in your planting holes and put a little soil over it so the roots don't touch. I do the same thing except mine are in pots. I do use it very sparingly down in the pot, but so far, I only had a few pots that had a little damage to some of the outside green leaves. I didn't take them out of the pot to see, but I'd bet they got a little too much of the pellets becaues they actually looked burned. I saw this on maybe 4 pots out of close to a thousand so I think it worked just fine. Now, I don't know how long in the ground it would take for the pellets to lose their heat factor, but in my pots it just took a couple of weeks for the plant to recover. so I figure that's about how long the pellets take to compost into the soil.

It's sleeting here now!!! It's about 40 degrees so hopefully none will stick. Ice storms are terrible things for mother nature to deal with. All of us have experienced one here in our areas and we pray that it never happens again. It destroyed our pine tree forests. We had nearly all hardwoods but we still lost close to 10 trees on our 3 acres. These were huge old trees. This happened around 20 years ago but I can still hear the limbs breaking with the sound of shotgun blasts every few minutes. It scared the kids to death. This lasted for 2 days. It was so bad the first day that we were all in tears from the stress of listening to the limbs break. It was around 35 degrees the night we had that storm and the following day the temps dropped below freezing so the ice lasted for nearly a week. A long week!!! We've had some smaller ones since then but nothing like that one, praise God for this.

I hope everyone is doing ok. My maps show that in Missouri and Arkansa are getting snow at this time. I sure hope it goes North of us!!

Blessings to all, Mona

It was cold here Sunday, better yesterday and better yet today. IT really has been a strange winter with mostly very mild temps. No snow either. Still, I am always ready for spring.

Can't believe we are going back to the 60 temps.
La Nina must still be with us.

It is so weird this year. I did put mulch on everything and lots of it but we have had so much wind and only and sciff of snow here and there. I did go out last week to look at all the beds and most of the mulch has been blown into another county. It has been mild temps with short flushes of very cold to -29 and I am so worried I have lost some. On the other hand I will at least know wjat it hardy and what is not, Just wish they all were.

Not familiar with the use of alfalfa pellets. What do they do, release
nitrogen?

They have a growth harmone that is released with moisture. They cause a growth spurt with lush green foilage. I am using them the first time since Sept of 2011. This was after bloom season. I can tell you more this year after bloom season. I do know they caused my fans to grow really big and green. I'm attaching a link:

http://www.ahsregion13.org/inf...

Also, just do a google search on "alfalfa pellets and daylilies" and you'll find even more info. Be sure not to let the pellets contact the roots down in the planting hole. It can cause roots burn if too much is used in the planting hole.

Blessings, Mona