I have a 54" diameter circular garden with 5 Daylilies in it. I need a place in full sun to plant a couple Iris' . Most of my yard is shady with this one little spot in the sun. I have more sun but the soil needs to be amended before I plant anything in it and I'm just not ready for that yet.

I have 14 to 18" between daylilies. Do you think there's room for Iris too?

Eighteen to 24 inches is the recommended minimum for daylilies so, unless they are ones that stay small, then there's not really room for irises too.. For "normal" size daylilies 24" apart would be better.

with Sooby, more space is better, especially if you don't know the ultimate size of your daylilies. Some can be pretty tall, making large clumps, and some stay quite small, but until you see their full size - at the end of the summer you'll have a better idea - give them lots of room. Do you know the names of the daylilies you planted? If so, look them up in the Plant Database and it should tell you about how big they will get.

Iris also need full sun and after they have bloomed their foliage stays tall and upright, and they increase during the growing season so they would tend to shade and crowd your daylilies especially if you have small ones.

If you want to plant something between new daylily plants to make the bed look good until the daylilies fill in, plant some short annuals.

sooby said:Eighteen to 24 inches is the recommended minimum for daylilies so, unless they are ones that stay small, then there's not really room for irises too.. For "normal" size daylilies 24" apart would be better.

Good soil allows closer plantings. I covered mine in 3" of compost last Fall.

True, but keep in mind that if the daylilies are happy they will increase to the point that the clump, even without foliage, is 8in to 12in. across. If you plant too closely, you'll have a solid mass of daylilies eventually. At my daughter's, we had a couple of the medium sized ones form a huge clump within about 3 years. Makes for a lot of difficulty when it comes to thinning and dividing them.

Meri, another thing lots of people like to plant in a daylily bed is spring flowering bulbs. It extends the bloom season for your daylily bed if you start out with daffodils and tulips in there, and the big benefit is that then the daylily foliage covers up the maturing bulb foliage nicely. A few chrysanthemums in there for fall color and you have at least 3 seasons with flowers in your bed. Be sure to buy short variety of chrysanthemums, too of course.

Did you mean to write Iris and Daylilies in your subject header? Right now it says Hosta and Daylilies.

I tried the daylily iris planting combo, a little too close, the daylilies got too big and the foliage shaded the iris.

Sorry about the header, what was I thinking? I did mean Daylilies and Iris'.

I just planted the Daylilies last fall. They're all noids that were given me by a friend but I know they're full size. Last fall I asked my friend for just one Daylily. Just a part of one specific flower. He sent me 10 full clumps! These daylilies were 18 years old but he decided to build a new garage right where they were growing! OMG, The clumps were huge! I broke them up and gave pieces away to anyone I could talk into taking some. Since I was expecting a small piece I had nowhere to plant 10 clumps! Now, remember I'm a 68 year old slightly handicapped lady . It took me a week to dig out the grass, amend the soil, edge the bed in brick, plant 5 Daylilies and mulch the bed. I work in short spurts resting often. Then it took me another week to make a 2nd bed for the other 5 Daylilies. Of course, when I was done I knew it was too small. Just thinking about enlarging the beds tires me out. LOL I added Tulips and Daffodils to the bed with the Daylilies.
The Iris' arrived from a trade and I'll find somewhere else to plant them. Maybe in large pots, at least until I can find a permanent home for them.

I updated the header.

Calif_Sue