I have never seen a snake here.

Jan, why do you think you have crown rot? If you really think it is you can remove the mushy stuff from the crown and pour bleach (more than once may be neccessary) on it. Sometimers it helps and sometimes it doesn't. I use Banrot and Subdue Maxx on mine but have used bleach before. Most people usually dig it up, clean all the mush off and soak in a 10% - 25% bleach solution for 10- 30 min (maybe more) and then sit it in the shade to dry really good then replant, but not in the same soil. I have dug them and soaked them but I have better luck just leaving them in the ground or pot and spraying them every couple days for about a week. We had rot really bad here because the cold hot freeze hot cold freeze hot cycle would turn the new growth that grew in the warm spells to mush when it would freeze and this can go to the crown and rot it. I walk the beds every day checking all the daylilies. Any that I see that may be looking rotty I spray (I keep a 2 gallon sprayer filled with my rot chemicals). This has saved just about every one that was having problems. Now I have noticed that if the growing tip (center of the crown where the new foiliage emerges from) has been damaged then a lot of times the main fan will not grow back, but you will get off shoots growing from it.

Since you think it's rot try grasping the center foliage of the fan and give it a tug, usually if it's rotted the fan will just pull out.

I also spray the soil and the crown with insecticide such as TalstarP (Bifenthrin) or something like Bayer Advance Complete for soil and turf (Imidacloprid) to kill any insects that will feast on the rot. I have pulled the fan from the crown and there will be tiny beetle looking things or tiny white worms and other things crawling in the crown eating away.



Here's a phot that Fred took of what the bottom of the fan looks like with rot


Worse case of it


Here's one of the crown that I left in the soil that didn't make it


Here's one where I saved it and it's growing back

I started over the weekend cleaning up all the dead foliage. Almost finished with all the beds and now am waiting to move plants into a new
area so I can fix 2 old beds that need redoing. I noticed a couple of holes in the beds so figured the clean up will discourage whatever is trying to use my garden as a nesting area.

Snakes? Yes, we get them here too and like you, I'm not a fan but they are suppose to be good for the garden. Imagine opening a tarp which covered a pile of garden soil and seeing them laying on top.

Michelle, realize that my plants have all gone dormant mostly (even the evergreens look more semi evergreen, and the semis look dormant) - Yes, I did pull on the foliage and all the fan pulled out. One in fact had some mold growing on it. I think I allowed my pot ghetto, in their protected area, stay too long with the leaves on them, they were probably "warmer" than the ones in the ground, but not getting as much sunlight.

I think winter was too mild, and spring is waaay too early - and I planned for the usual snow cover and frigid temps and mulched and protected them accordingly.

I think I will do what you suggested, and dig them up after work tonight & rinse in bleach solution. I am hoping a warm day in the sunlight will help them too. It's only a couple of the dozen I have in pots, but like all of us, I hate to lose any.

This batch is mostly evergreens that I planned on planting last year. I was to pull the monster evergreen bushes at the front of the house, relandscape and put them all there in a sunny eastern protected area. But loosing two trees last year, and having to pay to get them removed meant that I didn't have the budget for doing this project, hopefully this year.....

Then I planned to leave them in my insulated garage all winter, until one developed rust - so I pulled them all outside - which got rid of the rust I am happy to see!

On a great note: I bought Tusk from the LA last year, and a few weeks after receiving it, it was doing poorly. Evey other plant I got from the LA, from that seller and others was doing great, except for Tusk and a seedling. I tried transplanting into different medium, tried all sorts of things, and I was losing it. So in desperation, I moved it into my front "dip" only bed. And slowly but surely, it survived.(seedling died, but that's OK) Mulched it well last fall, and lo and behold... there is some green there, and it lived! So I am really happy, even though I will be surprised if it blooms this year, I will continue to baby it and cross my fingers ~Jan

I wouldn't mind a few garter snakes in my garden. We get mice in our garage and they probably would keep the mice population down. I think an animal has gotten into my compost bin though. The bottom door, where you get the compost out, was off and I lifted the lid to look inside and there has been something digging in it. Hope its not skunks. I did see a skunk in the yard a couple of weeks ago.

I have snakes in my yard, which is fine because I love snakes. Last year I had a this teeny teeny little baby snake.. wasn't any bigger than a pencil! I also have Sam & Samantha, a pair of bigger garter snakes (yes, one is female, one is male) that keep the mouse population down (due to the bird seed, I had a bad mousy problem a few years ago). One of them (I think Sam) nests in my window well next to my bedroom.. drives the cats INSANE when he slithers out of his hole & crawls up the window well to the surface to hunt mousies. They also help keep the grasshopper problem down. My neighbor 3 houses to my left lets her 3 cats out all the time, so they keep the mouse/bird population under control, much to my dismay (especially when I have 6 bird feeders out!!). I've talked until I'm blue in the face about keeping her cats inside, but "it's too hard to keep them inside". Uh, lady, you have 3 cats. I have MANY more than that & NONE of mine go outside!

This Sunday I'm definitely going to be working on my DL bed getting it prepped. Never seen/heard of this rot. Do you not get it just from snow? I gotta give EVERYTHING a major haircut and see how much grass has encroached on the DL bed. I'm getting in more DLs soon, so I gotta make sure that they have a home nice & ready for them!

Oooooh, Toni, do they also eat moles and voles?

BB - I have no idea here. When I was a teenager, I lived in the mountains away from it all (and I mean AWAY from it all... 22miles to the closest town) and we welcomed snakes because they did eat gophers. But I don't have moles/voles/gophers here. Every great great once in a while a prairie dog will wander into my cul-de-sac, but they usually get eaten by the hawks that live in my neighborhood.

tink3472 said:.... Most people usually dig it up, clean all the mush off and soak in a 10% - 25% bleach solution for 10- 30 min (maybe more) and then sit it in the shade to dry really good then replant, but not in the same soil....

Is ground soil treated with a fungicide so that something can be planted there or is it removed?

You can do it either way. If I dig the plant up I usually treat the soil with the fungicide and then replant in that area later, like in the fall when I'm replanting. You can remove the soil, but I would still treat the area since the fungus/bacteria is in the soil anyway.

tink3472 said:You can do it either way. If I dig the plant up I usually treat the soil with the fungicide and then replant in that area later, like in the fall when I'm replanting. You can remove the soil, but I would still treat the area since the fungus/bacteria is in the soil anyway.

Thanks.