The designation of field grown can also apply to tissue culture plants. After a TC is grown in a pot, it goes into the ground to attain size.

TC plants would be great and very inexpensive except not all of the little plantlets come true to the parent plant. Most daylily people object to it, including me, but hosta and orchid people put up with the variation in the occasional plant/bloom. In fact, many new hosta intros are being derived from the oooops portion of the group.

If the plants are grown to bloom size and culled to eliminate the peculiarities it would be fine but they aren't and in daylilies, you end up with blooms not representative of the original cultivar.

Brooke

Hi Chrissy. Are you in Nova Scotia? I'm in Malagash, Cumb, Co. Here's how I look at TC. If the plant is available to me from a grower at a good price I'll buy the original. If the TC is something I want and can't get the original stock, if the plant is vigorous I'll try it. I've had very good luck with the feu TC I've bought, but, if you buy TC try to see the bloom to make sure the labeling is correct....the good growers, Darwin Plants, and Heemskerk I.E., usually do TC correctly, appretice daylily workers weed out the wrong stock....but some do not and than its let the buyer beware.A mislabeled plant is a wrong plant..I had a local grower tell me that if the plant has grown correctly, and looks the same..than it is the correct plant. Here I duck my head, but this is what a brred told him..I've had both TC and actual plant and allowing for soil and growing conditions...they have looked and grown exactly the same...so if you like the plant, enjoy it...but if a nursery has a tc for 20 to 25 for a single fan...I would rather get a single fan of the real thing if available...do remember if you buy a bagged DL at your local store it may take up to 3 years to bloom or may bloom right away....its a bit of a chance.....but we have places like Nsdaylies in Bridgewater and Canning dayllies....with good prices and great plants....so enjoy, lloyd

Hi Lloyd! Yes, I am from Nova Scotia. I live near Mahone Bay. I have bought daylilies from NSDaylilies and Canning. I was just what other people thought about tissue culture. I hope spring soon arrives. I am tired of cold and snow. Chrissy

Hi,

Some tissue cultures may be perfect copies, but what I hate is - how can you really tell, unless you are growing a real division beside it? If you want a specific color or specific attribute and find out 5 years later that your TC isn't an accurate copy you may feel cheated. You may feel that you wasted your money. With all the problems of mislabelling of plants in general, it adds another layer of chance.

Some people enjoy the fun of "mixed" packages of plants or seeds in general. Not me. I tolerated mislabeling in my early years of gardening. Now I realize that not getting the real plant (be it a particular color daylily or other kind of plant) is a terrible waste of my time. I accept a gamble when the price is low enough, or when I'm not fussy, but not very often with daylilies because I am particular about color.

When I buy a german iris, a tulip, or a daylily and it doesn't turn out the color I purchased, it is generally an orange, a reddish orange, or slight pink orange. If returning them is not feasible they get given to anyone that will take them. As you can imagine orange is my least favorite in the garden.

Color is mentioned because it is one of the attributes most important to me in a daylily.

I think you just have to take daylily TC's for what they are at this point - a bit of a lottery ticket like plants from the scratch and dent section, and decide whether you want to take that chance. If not you can usually find good deals from growers that guarantee they are not TC's, and will guarantee them true to name and color. I suppose this is really a better alternative for the future of keeping daylily varieties true for the future.

Mary

OK, but how do you know if you are buying tissue cultured plants? Do the sellers disclose this or if the plants are not guaranteed true to color and name can you assume there is a chance they are tissue cultured?

Many of those selling daylilies propagated from divisions of fans are advertising this fact and very proud of it. They usually specialize in daylilies. Newer varieties at riduculously low prices are usually a clue of TC. If the supplier doesn't advertise "not Tissue Cultures" you can ask if their daylilies are propagated from tissue cultures or fan divisions. If they haven't a clue what you are talking about, chances are they sell at least some TC's if not all.

I used to think that just the newer varieties of daylilies were TC'd as the oldies should be so plentiful and cheap, but others on this site told me that even oldies are sold as TC's especially if they are a variety slow to increase naturally.

Mary

If you are buying the plant for hybridizing, then I recommend you try to get a clone of the original plant.
If you are buying for garden color, then tissue culture may suit you fine. There will be more chance that you will get a mislabeled plant or one that is not completely true to original, but not many would be able to tell.
If it is really important to you, whether or not the plant is tissue cultured; deal with people you trust, have a good reputation and guarantee your satisfaction.

tc i have had trouble with . the ones i have had ,more than likely, will not last the winter or when thay bloom do not bloom true and i have had trouble with the pollin dont waste your time get the real thing and ask the people you get them from if it is a tc or if thay sell tc my idea is to keep away from them

Hostas are often tissue cultured and nobody has a problem with it, but with hostas, you see leaves immediately and know what you've got. My experience with TC daylilies is that even though they are cheap, they take years to bloom and by the time they do, the price is way down on the division-grown ones anyway.

You can usually tell if they are TC by the price or the size of the fans.

I have been growing TC daylilies for 3 years, although some hate the idea of mixing them in the garden, I have found them to be just as reliable as the original ones. I have left some growing by themselves for 2 years and have kept up with some for that length of time. All in all they always come out great by the 3rd year, I always try to see the 2nd years blooms before they leave for someones anxious garden. There are a lot of growers forcing them out the door and mislabeling (Van Bloem, awful at that)the plants, then it takes someone almost 2 years to figure out they have the wrong flower and then replacements come and have to wait again.

As long as the person explains in there description that you are buying TC daylilies I think the gardeners around the country can obtain those hard to find varieties at a very low cost.

Of course this is only my opinion, I live in Zone 8a and have great success with my garden, thats me holding the hose everyday....lol

Thanks for letting me voice my opinion on this subject, happy gardening to all

Can someone explain to me exactly what a Tissue Culture is? How else to you get a daylily besides dividing fans?

Laurie

Laurie,
Tissue culture is using genetic material from one plant to clone large numbers of what should be identicle plants. Like Brooke stated there are variations. The problem with buying tissue cultured plants from garden centers is also people remove tags, put them back in the wrong pots, and drop them on the ground for someone else to pick up and put back in the wrong pots.

If you ever purchased a plant at a garden center, there is a chance they are tissue cultured.

If you all believe no one is using it to produce inventory for introduction, I have some nice swampland to sell you, and I'll throw in a bridge as well to sweeten the deal. I do believe the people doing it are growing the out, and flowering them to prove them out before selling them.

I have a few that came from tissue culture, MILDRED MITCHELL is one, and I have the real deal too, they are planted right next to each other so I will see how accurate the TC is. The others are BAYPORT, ROYAL BRAID, STARTLE, HER MAJESTYS WIZARD, and EL DESPARADO. I also have the real EL DESPARADO, and they match perfectly. I have seen ROYAL BRAID, and it is the same. STARTLE and HER MAJESTYS WIZARD have not bloomed for me yet. BAYPORT was a cultivar I believe Pat Stamile sold to a TC company, along with a few other plants, I can't remember their names right now.

Last year I saw SOUTH SEAS, AVANTE GUARD, STRUTTERS BALL, and ROCKET CITY along with some others, I am sure they were TCs, and I own all of them, they were all pretty much the same as the ones in my garden. I say pretty much because I couldn't actually compare them with mine, and they potting soil they were growing in is probably better than my clay.

In my opinion, tissue culturing isn't the problem, it is nothing more than mislabeling, mishandling, and missorting that cause the big headaches.

As an example I grew 600 TCs of Stella D'Oro. They arrived as small little plantlets, and after growing them all to bloom size I found that about 1% of them are Black Eyed Stella. That really isn't a big number, but it does show that the TC process can have some minor mistakes. But when you buy from a big wholesaler that doesn't care if they sell you the right daylily it doesn't matter if the plant was grown from TC or NOT, if they send you the wrong plant it is the wrong plant, and in my opinion that happens a lot more often than the 1% or so of TC errors.