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Soil, Compost & Mulch

No daylily's in compost pile???

16 years ago

Oh no -- I was just reading on the Far North forum that you shouldn't put daylily, iris, or peony foliage in the compost heap because of the liklihood of disease. Is that true?? If it is, my first-ever compost heap won't be any good... I started it with LOADS of daylilies that I'd cut down and dug out to replace with something else and have since added plenty of both iris and peony foliage.

And I've spent so many months taking care of it...! And all my prescious leaves are in there now.

Well if these three truly are a bad bet, does anyone know of anything else to keep out?

Comments (7)

jean001
16 years ago
No big deal if they were healthy when they went into the pile.

The potential problem occurs when home gardeners compost diseased plants. Too few home compost piles are hot enough to get rid of the disease propagules.
joepyeweed
16 years ago
I wouldn't worry about it. In fact some people think that composting diseased materials can create a compost that would be an innoculant against that disease. In order to digest the disease, the microherd must develop some critters to consume it. Which will then be present in the compost.

And if you are worried, make an extra effort to get your pile HOT.

I usually just mow my bulb foliage back into the soil right where the plants grow. Which in essence is composting them in place, and I haven't had any problems.
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dorisl
16 years ago
I put a couple wads of daylilies in my compost and the goofy things just grew there.

Guess I should chopped them up more, eh?

shoulda coulda woulda ---- didnt.

hee!
kqcrna
16 years ago
I compost daylilies and peony foliage all the time without problem. But then, they have no obvious disease.

Karen
duluthinbloomz4
16 years ago
Same here, my compost gets peonies and daylilies. People are largely concerned with Botrytis Blight in peonies and rust on daylilies, I think. If your plants aren't obviously diseased - as noted above - they're fine to compost.

I threw in some large chunks of Stella d'Oro which I'm sure will live long and prosper instead of disappearing.
petalpatsy
16 years ago
I'm another one that can comment on how well Stella does in the compost pile. I'm thinking the circle of life, and she's thinking spa vacation.
barbaranh
Original Author
16 years ago
Oh I'm so glad this is likely to be a false alarm. At least I didn't notice any obvious disease, so I'm going to let it all break down and use it next year.

Thanks for the reassurance.

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