I am having bad luck with my seeds. I refrigerated them for over 3 weeks and soaked them in the peroxide and water solution. They all got there root nubs coming out of the seed before I planted them. I wet the seed starting soil before I planted them with camomille tea and water. And watered them with a spray bottle everyday. I have a heat mat on all the time under them. With a clear dome over them, and all I have is one up. What am I doing wrong???? Kim

Hi Kim, Sounds like you're doing everything right. How long have you had them planted? Is this your first time at planting daylily seeds?

The only thing that I can think of, did the root nubs dry out or turn brown before you planted them? I just plant mine in good soil and hope. I don't soak mine or let them germinate before putting them in the soil. It's taking forever for mine this year because I haven't heated the greenhouse this year. I planted 950 seeds from Jan 13 thru Jan 29 of this year and so far, I have only 266 up and growing. It took 18 days for the first seed to pop it's little green head up. Then 3 days later I have 13 more come up. I haven't really had any good days until the last two weeks when my weather got warmer and had several good sunshiny days that warmed the greenhouse up to in the 80s. I had 48 come up yesterday and it got up to 88 in the greenhouse yesterday and up to 84 the day before. So, I'm sure when I have more good warm days, I will have loads more come up.

I hope it's just taking time. One thing I have done when I just couldn't wait any longer to see if everything was ok, I very carefully dug several of my seeds out of the pots to see if they were growing. Again, very carefully so as not to break your root. I've done this on several cups and I found just good fat seeds setting in there wet soil and I also found several sprouting that just hadn't grown up and out of the soil. I also keep my soil just moist, not really wet. I water with a 2 gallon pump up sprayer so I don't disturb the seeds with too much water pressure.

All of this is strictly how I do things. I'm quite sure there are much better ways. We all have little things that we do different, so please, throw everything I say into a pile and pull out what you like and throw the rest away.

One more thing. Good soil and clean pots are also a must for me for seed starting.

Good luck and patience go a long way in growing daylilies from seed.

Blessings, Mona

Last year I tried a variety of methods with my seeds. I found I had the best luck - whether I used the "rocks" method, or left them in their baggies at room temp (after being refrigerated for 3 weeks) if I allowed my germinating seeds to get a bit bigger before planting them in soil. Instead of planting them as soon as I saw anything, I waited until they got half an inch long - or longer.

I just had better results - but that's just me.

On the rocks method - which is what I prefer because I was more patient with them, and allowed them to get bigger before planting

http://www.ezdaylilies.com/OTR...

As Mona asked, how long have they been planted? Sometimes it takes awhile even if the root nub (radicle) has emerged for the seed to produce the leaves. I have done the same as Mona and dug seeds out to see what they were doing. Sometimes they had rotted, other times they are just slow to emerge. I wouldn't think you would need to water them every day especially if you have a dome over them. I plant mine in seed trays outside in the shade and do not water them every day. You may want to check a few seeds and see if they may have rotted. I used the trays with the jiffy pellets and the domes one time and every seed I put in there rotted because they stayed too wet.

Also I am wondering if the top should come off and let them get a little more air. Air circulation is very important and I have had trouble in the past with that. I now leave lids off altogether. Put a small fan near the plants if you can.

Too much water is not good, I have my seedlings in 4" pots. When the seeds germinate, I plant them in damp planting mix, give them a good watering with distilled water and don't water again until the top starts to slightly dry, once the seedling are up I then water from the bottom. The fan is a good idea, I use one when they get a little bigger.

Michele, I'll probably be starting my seeds this year as soon as I can. Since it will still be so hot in the greenhouse I'd love to put them outside but our very hard fast rain storms can wash the seeds out of the pots in less than 10 minutes. What do you do to keep this from happening when you put the outside? Mona

Well, Fred didn't tell me about needing to cover the seed trays before it rains so when we had a bad 2-3 day storm I had a lot of the seeds wash out. Most of the ones that did though were rotted anyway so no real loss. The only thing you can do is try to cover them somehow. As far as your greenhouse goes, can you not open it up so it won't be so hot inside?

Yes, it has a door on each end that are about 6' wide. That helps alot. AND< I just remembered, I have 7 (11x22 shade clothes out there that I can cover it with. Ok, job done. I'll get a fan to put in there and with the shade clothe, every thing should be fine. I'll put them outside once they get big enough to handle the rain.

Good deal.

One thing I have learned this early season of planting seed in an unheated Greenhouse. I have used 18oz red plastic cups and 12oz opaque(not clear but not white either). The 12oz size has germinated 10 to 1 faster than the red cups. I'd say the smaller ones warm up quicker than the bigger red cups and since the 12 oz is partially clear this helps too.

Now, the red cups will probably provide a longer growing period before having to transplant, so I'll just have to determine which will be best overall.

It's bedtime, good night and blessings, Mona

I wonder if that can be another verse in Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup" song....

philljm said:I wonder if that can be another verse in Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup" song....

It would surely be an improvement. lol

sorry it took me awhile to answer when I started planting it was February 8. And I only have 2 up. I went and took the top off the container, moved them under the grow lights and unplugged the heating mat. I am or was looking forward to the crosses I purchased on the LA. Kim

Don't give up on them yet Kim, it hasn't been that long, be patient and hopefully more will start to pot up.