I purchase daylilies from Gilbert H Wilde every year. So this year was no exception. I placed my order in Oct/Nov and
just received my plants..And boy was I upset They are all small but, there are four that are Very Tiny.They are
Baby Blues, Love Those Eyes, Jan's Twister 7.50 & FreeWheelin 12.00 The two I really Really wanted Jan's Twister
& FreeWheelin broke my heart.

So I contacted Gilbert H Wilde and get a song and dance... "Some of our plants are just smaller than others. People feel like the more they pay for a plant the bigger it should be, but they just don’t grow that way. Please plant them and give them time and I am sure they will all bloom, but if you are unhappy, you may return them for a full refund. I don’t have larger ones to replace them, they are just smaller varieties. Sorry.

I want opinions on what to do ?? Should I send them back Or might they make it without being weak plants

I would not pay 12.00 for that. I would have been very upset myself. I personally would send them back and ask for a full refund. Document everything as well, so you do get your refund.

FYI Maryott has freewheelin listed @ 15.00 a double fan. I would wholeheartedly recommend them. They send huge fans, with nice roots and usually really nice bonus as well. I also found freewheelin listed at Woodhenge gardens( Jim Murphy & Margo Reed) for 25.00 and at Early bird daylilies for 40.00( Robin sends nice plants & nice bonuses too).

Just so you can get a sense here is my order from Maryott last fall. Free wheelin was not on my order.




This is just my opinoin take it for what it's worth.

Kimkats

Wow....I ordered Free Wheelin' from them too. I requested shipping between the end of April & mid May. If I get something like that I will plant it it but may not order from them again. I have received small fans like that from other places too and they eventually do grow...usually!

The reason I bought it from Wilde's is that they do not require a minimum like so many places do, making me spend more money then I have and plants I have no room for.

I just received some like that, too, but I didn't pay that much and I knew they would be inferior to most other "real" daylily gardens' plants. I had read enough to know not to expect quality plants. They had "Scottish Fantasy" that I couldn't find anywhere else and I ordered a couple of cheap late dls just for the heck of it. They really are extremely pitiful looking (dehydrated) compared to others I received around the same time. I soaked them and watered good when I planted. I hope I don't ever have to depend on them for anything else.

DD

The thing is I have about 60 daylilies from Wilde. And I want to get some spiders that rebloom and I fell in Love
'with FreeWheelin. I thought I was safe buying it from them . I could not afford the 25 ones that I had seen. I have
them soaking in Root Stimulator right now.

Any suggistions on how to plant the little guy

Claudia//I hope you get a better one. Please LMK what yours looks like

I will never buy from them again

I really recommend Maryott's too. I got FREE WHEELIN' from them a couple of years ago, and I got a big triple fan -- I think I ordered four daylilies from them that year (my first purchases from them) and Bill Maryott sent something like FIVE bonus plants, including a couple of his introductions from the year before! Can't beat that! Maryott's will be sending out their plants starting June 15th, I think, so you'd have to wait a couple of months, but what a difference in plant quality and size!

Hi Shannon..I believe Wild's digs them and refrigerates them throughout the winter and that's what they all look like they have been treated that way. Free Wheelin' and Jan's Twister are evergreen and the thing I would look for is if the roots are soft and or hollow instead of firm and golden or very white new ones. Your Baby blues one is a dormant and I thought it might be by looking at it like it's just now trying to set leaves. It's a beautiful cultivar...below is the link to Tinkers where they confirmed to me that it was a dormant. Also, since its sise is so small(as registered) I think that might explain it being small now. I have SHIRLEY FARMER lined out and compared to JIM SPENCER and CHINESE SCRIBE and JOAN DERIFIELD, it is much smaller....takes a while to settle in, etc...sort of like what Wilds told you
.

Baby Blues DIP
Stamile-G.
Share Cultivar






Year:
Height:
Diameter:
Season:
Fragrance:
Scape:
Fertility:

1990
1' 8''
3''
Mid
Fragrant
Branching: Bud Count:
Pod: Yes (7) Pollen: Yes (19)
Habit:
Rebloom:
Extended Bloom:
Nocturnal Bloom:
Form:
Form Description:
Stout Silver Medal:

Dormant

ext



Color/Descript:

pale lavender with washed gray blue eyezone edged with fuchsia line and green throat
Parentage:

[(SILOAM BABY TALK x COMING OUT PARTY) X SILOAM TINY TIM]

If I opened a box and saw that, I would cry! Plain, simple, there is no excuse for plants of that quality. If I dug plants that looked like that, I would contact you, give you my opinion of the plants and let you decide if you 'REALLY' wanted them. One thing, those plants probably didn't look that way when they were dug. lThey have been left out for days without water. Many days from the looks of them.

If they will still refund your money after you plant them and see if they will grow, then I might chance it. But, you probably have no chance of a bloom this year.

I'm sure glad you posted this. I got a catalog from them today and was considering ordering some Lilies. Not now. Thank you for saving me a big disappointment.

My opinion, I would send them back after they gave me a full refund. Shipping included.

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience, maybe it will be the last. Mona

I would rather your order than some I have gotten in the past. I have actually gotten some that look worse than yours. I had a plant (that I paid $100 for) that came with half of a crown and one root. I planted it in a pot and babied it and it survived. This year it has 2 fans. Yours look rather dried out, like they have been out of the ground for awhile. I would soak them for a couple of days before planting them.

I have seen $300 daylilies come in looking like that from the Northern area especially when they ship before June.
I ordered once from Wilds when I first got into daylilies. This was in the fall. I about had a cow when I saw the super small fans. I planted them anyway and figured I wouldn't get any blooms the following spring. I not only had blooms, but most of those small, double fans increased a lot. Some increased up to 10-14 fans. I see you got Double Cutie, mine increased to I think 27 fans and the fans are naturally small on that one.
Most of those look to have a decent root system, just really dried out like they sat out for awhile.

I have some daylilies that were huge fans last fall and they shrunk during the winter, some to almost nothing. I guess they do that to conserve energy for the following season

I personally wouldn't order from them again.

Everything I ever bought from Wild grew quite well and I still have them all, but I quit buying from them because I got too many mislabeled plants.

Up here ( Canada) ALL the daylilies I have ever bought mail order from any source looked like that. And they all cost $15.00 to $25.00 (we get ripped off a lot up here). I no longer mail order any daylilies. I have found a couple places now that have better varieties (still quite expensive) but they are direct from grower. Lat year I planted the last of my mail order daylilies and this spring all I see is a small single fan of each, no increase on any of them. They always take a couple years to get established and then I see good growth.

I agree Brian, the last order I got from a catalog I requested my money back because they looked so bad, a lot of them had rotten roots and one even had crown rot. I took photos of what I had received and sent them in an e-mail to the company and I got a refund. I to happily found a grower that I go visit a couple of times a year for my daylilies.

I'm spoiled to getting nice healthy plants and I'm sure that I couldn't handle that. I don't mind the fans being small. Small isn't bad, dried out is. They will probably live but why chance it when we don't have to. I'm glad ya'll have found a local person to buy from. I don't have any idea how to ship out of country. I know that some of our big folks do.

I agree, small is one thing, dried out is another. There is more than one website where you can buy daylilies that are stored. Not my thing.

But as to small fans, hey, many daylilies do have small fans. Dips that are older, dips that are spidery, dips that short and plants that get shipped from the north in early spring.

No way can we northern shippers compete with the hunky things shipped in the fall, shipped from the south, or shipped from Ca.

I, along with Melanie Mason (AHS northern grower) believe in shipping early, when we can, daylily crowns and roots. Making the plant top GROW in your garden, rather than ours. However, I try not to ship until mine have stabilized which sometimes is mid-late May. My growing season is two weeks later than others in the area due to being in the ocean, on an island with a late spring.

I would recommend returning the plants and growing from ANOTHER NORTHERN grower. Those grown in the south may arrive huge, but then get set back if you are a northern garden.

I hope this note helps you.

Shipping out of the country isn't the only problem, getting the right import permits and then having to deal with our slow customs and pathetic excuse for a postal service is where the real problem lies. For example I'm a member of NALS, I got my December bulletin in the middle of February and March's is still no where to be seen. Last year I ordered a rose early spring and It was mailed in time for spring planting. It was delivered in August. The replacement I went and picked up was happily growing and blooming in my garden while the original shipment was a mouldy rotten stick.

I agree BB small is not necessarily a bad thing and northern growers can't be expected to ship the same size plants as their southern counterparts but when small takes two to three seasons to become even a double fan there is a problem. I'm not sure how long the plants were stored that I received last year but they didn't grow any larger than 3 - 4 inches tall and this year they are still single, tiny ( in comparison to all others) fans. They were much later to sprout as well (given this spring, not a bad thing). I don't think I'd want to order from too far south anyway as our normal winters can shock and kill plants that are not accustomed to long freezing temperatures. You see that all the time. People who buy all their plants from the big box stores ( HD, WM etc.) always end up having to replace many of the shrubs and perennials brought in from the southern states.

I think a lot of us order from Wild's when we first got into daylilies. I do believe they dig in the Fall and hold them over. My first order was very disappointing too. I planted them and they lived but it took 2 yrs for any blooms :(

I am not digging orders yet. I like to let them grow until mid April at least before sending them out.

Have a Happy Easter everyone! I love walking in my Eden, God makes beautiful plants.

Teresa in KY

We ordered from Wild's years ago when we first got into daylilies. Little did we know then about how shipped daylilies should look, but even then we were disappointed in the tiny, dried up fans that we received. After a couple of orders, we decided to never order again from them. It took a couple of years before we got blooms.

Well I am going to keep the little babies . And give them a fighting chance. They soaked two days in
root start and all look better . So they are all potted up Wish them Luck

And as for Wilde this will be my last order

I bought what is hopefully Primal Scream last fall. They were not huge. I planted next to the primal Scream I already have and they are the same size right now. Hope they grow for you. I will let you know how my Free Wheelin' looks when I get it! I had no idea growers would dig and then hold them over winter!