Viewing post #527506 by tink3472

blue23rose said:Becky, I am in zone 6b. We had such a drought in 2012 that my husband watered everything to keep them alive. I believe (maybe wrongly) that by watering from the top, that the rust that was already there was allowed to spread through all the daylilies even faster. It may be that it was going to do that anyway since I did have some evidence of rust before. I just didn't have it bad enough to worry about spraying.

from http://www.lilyfarm.com/rust.h...

"Overhead watering allows the foliage to stay damp, forming a perfect vehicle for the rust to appear"

At my old place I had some beds that got overhead watering and some that had the drip hoses (hate those things-don't last a whole season here). In the beds with the drip hoses I had less rust outbreak but the downside was I had more spider mites since they like it dry. Overhead watering help some in keeping the spider mite population down.