Rita, I know where you're coming from.My sister walked the gardens here when they were in bloom last year and said you can't possibly look after more gardens. And she's right. I've actually started taking stuff out. Breaking up , trading, even a small amount of selling to people who want to catch the habit. It doesn't seem to ever stop but I'm slowing it down. And for 2011 I have ordered only one fan of one plant[so far]. And yes, we can get sick of planting but Rita, you know we forget all about that when they bloom....These plants are just like puppies. We can't resist. Just in the house from planting a dl order!...cheers, lloyd

LOL, perhaps if you didn't buy all the other 'goodies' you wouldn't feel so overwhelmed ; -). This too will pass so hang in there the tub is almost empty instead of almost full.

Bloom time is coming and you will be finished planting with time to relax and enjoy the view.

Julia

But I love to buy all the other goodies LOL :-)) Actually I was out there planting the new lupines I bought yesterday, 8 pots. Only planted 3 so far. Had to move two daylilies, which I just put rootball full of soil into a plastic bin for temporary holding. Came in to get a drink and then I always check the computer. I guess I am compulsive.

The soaking tub is almost empty but there is a not so small order coming. At least it is the last one. Hurray for that. I just get too carried away in the winter. Then in the spring I think what comes over me to buy so much. Come bloom season and its so staggeringly beautiful. Oh well, not even any scapes yet and I have caught new plant crazies this spring.

The worse is the Tall Bearded Iris crazies that started last summer. Well my TB iris are just starting to bloom and I already sent in two more orders for this summer. Plus I discovered violas this spring, they are so lovely. The last thing that happened is I found these staggeringly beautiful lupines and I had to have them.

I often wonder how I manage to take care of everything around here myself but apparently I do manage because things look pretty good.

LOL! Know What you mean.
I planted my last order today but it was only 2 plants. I also moved 2 from a new bed that I realized were not getting enough rain. It was being blocked by a douglas fir tree. I'm done unless I buy more. I'm trying to be good but the LA keeps calling! LOL. Of course then I'll have several to plant in July when I make my annual pilgrimage to Perfect Perennials. I can't seem to leave there with less than a 1/2 dozen plants! Zero clue as to where I'll put anything else, but I'll still go.
I keep track of how many. I have 207 plus 60+ seedlings and more seeedling just emerging from the soil!

I do believe that qualifies me as a certifiable dayliy nut! LOL!!!!

Kim :D

We are all daylily nuts around here. We stick around the forum and that only makes it worse as all those lovely pictures get posted each bloom season. And you know there are always new ones that become must haves.

But as much as I love my daylilies, I don't absolutely love every daylily I have. There are those I think of as "filler" plants. Well, I have so many daylilies now that I am in no need of filler plants. Going to have to do some serious thinking come bloom season about whether everything really needs to stay.

LOL Rita...as I said in another thread, I have 3 that came yesterday. I think that is all for me for this year. Several will be getting divided amongst friends and won't be returning.

Un HUH. We're gonna have to get rid of some we don't love so much to have room for what we have to have.

I have scapes everywhere, so the daylily crazies can't be far behind.

I am so tired every muscle I have is aching. Why? you ask? Because I just had to have another bed and I've been out digging for hours to make it bigger. Ah well. It could be worse.
kay

Kay, you overdo the working lots of times. But then I know what you mean about being tired lots of times. It just needs to be done so it gets worked on. Try not to think about being tired LOL :-((

hahahaha I LOVE IT. Reading all these posts about tired of planting them daylilies.It IS work,I must admit and especiallly for older bodies.I would love to be outside today digging and planting, but,the body hurts so bad,I am lucky to still be walking around, today.When I get better days,I get out and dig holes, too and plant.One day last week,I planted 7 of them,,course,I had trouble getting back up on my feet after the last one, but, I felt good about what I got done. Today,I have a real beauty blooming one bloom,and I did go out and get a few pictures of it.Wow, Its so pretty."NIGHT RHYTHEMS",Thanks Rita, I will post a picture just as soon as I can learn how on this new computer,it is soo different then y old one,and supposely,it has a memory slot for the camera memory card, but,,I haven't found it yet.I have found 2 slots in the front of it, but, they don't look exactly like the ones in my old pc,, but,I will figure it out, one day.Oh and if that ain't enough,I lost everything in the old puter,including myIMAGE SHACK account, and some where,I had all the info wrote down,to get in it,user name,password, and I have misplaced that,and haven't been able to get in it yet.

Jean

Well Rita you give me a hollar if you decide to get rid of any of those "filler" plants, LOL. I'll FIND room some more here, LOL, and just a little off topic...I became a great grandmother on Tuesday for the first time to a beautiful baby boy.

Alberta

Just wait - the fun has only begun!! When your daylilies get so large that you just HAVE to divide them and/or start getting rid of some of the excess - then maybe you'll start selling on the Lily Auction. Digging, trimming, cleaning and shipping is much harder work than planting new ones, IMHO. I have been digging orders as well as planting the new ones and am finally ( hooray) down to the last two orders which will go out Monday. A few of the new ones have had to be potted up until I can get all of the old ones up and out.

But eventually those new DFs will become big clumps, and in a few years, they will need dividing. I'm having to also dig and thin daffodils this year. Gardening is definitely not for sissies!

Well now, here's what I came away with after reading about all this exhausting digging and planting. I bet all the daylily nuts are in way better health/physical condition/have more stamina/are happier/go to the doctor less/smile more and so forth than the average person. The way I look at it is that you can spend money on plants or in the doctor's office. Take your choice.

By the way, I have no idea where I am going to put all the soaking daylilies. Probably, the veggie garden will shrink this year.

Christine

i you ever get done at your house, you're more than welcome to stop by here and bring a shovel. i put in around 40 in the last two weeks and then it started to rain so couldn't get out there and keep up with the boxes that were coming. so now that it's finally sunny today i have around 60 that have been soaking on the porch since monday that need to go in the ground. plus a dozen new astilbe, around 1000 dl seedlings, 18 sarracenia, 5 grasses and 15 sempervivums that need to get planted before it starts raining again.

@floota

"Gardening is definitely not for sissies!"

Love it!

Christine and all,
DH says that is why he never fusses about the money I spend since my health has improved so dramatically over the few years I have been gardening.

So, I think your deduction may be cor5ect.
kay

I do know that digging, dividing and shipping is much harder than planting new ones. Not looking forward to having to divide everything. My daylilies are planted fairly closely.

One thing I have noticed is that the clumps that I put with lots and lots of space, like 3 feet, are big clumps already even though planted in 2008. While if they are crowded clumps planted at the same time are no where near as big and as many fans. I don't like them big like that. In fact I was looking at one of those really large clumps the other day thinking how much more I liked the look of that part of the garden when they were much smaller. I might dig them up LOL!

Jean, I sure do hope you figgure out how to post pictures with your new computer setup.

So, I had last night and this morning been planting lupines. But I had to move two clumps of daylilies for that project. I am finially done planting the lupines and now have to go out and replant the relocated daylilies. They are in clumps with lots of dirt and rootball in tact. So shouldn't be too bad.

It's done, it's done!!! I am finished planting the daylilies in the soaking tub. I also replanted all the daylilies that needed relocation form the other day and some newly relocated ones today. I don't need to look at the soaking tub any longer.

So I planted 6 that needed relocating and seven new ones today. That puts me up to date on the daylily planting. However, I have one more order coming and its lots of daylilies.

If only that was all I had to do. I still have two Siberian Iris orders to come, my second order from High Country Gardens of Hummer and Butterfly attracting plants, my order of Geums that should have been here this week and all the stuff sitting here that I bought locally that hasn't gotten in ground yet. Ugg. It's always like this in the spring.

Rita, I suppose it is a bad time to tell you that the daylily I promised to send this spring is in the mail :).

You all make me so glad that I do all of my daylily planting in the fall. I have already almost forgotten the amount of effort it took me last September. Now I only have 100 or so seedlings to put in the ground....

I am also glad that I am not the only one who goes crazy for new things. My "things" this spring have been hecheuras and clematis, so although I haven't been planting daylilies, I have still been planting planting planting....

Julie

I also agree that gardeners are healthier and happier people.

Rita, I suppose it is a bad time to tell you that the one I promised to send this spring is

Hi Julie, missed you on the forum. Thank you for the daylily. It arrived today and its already planted LOL :-))

For those of you planting this spring, do you think you will get a bloom this year? I'm new to this and not yet in the craziness of it. I know you are going to think I am lame but the only DL I have planted a lot of in different parts of garden is stella. I love this dl. I don't have room to plant numerous dl's for different blooming periods. Stella blooms all the time for me and this satisfy my dl quench for now. I did buy some dl's at the nurseries (none bloomed but purple de oro and happy returns) and purchased one dl from DL sale last year. In just one year they all got bigger clumps and I hope some blooms since it has been a year. If the dl I purchase from bare root last year blooms this year I might get tempted to do like you guys and place some orders. I really don't need a new habit- I am already addicted to buying hostas.

Most of the time you do get bloom if the fans are a good size and you don't plant late. Often the blooms are smaller and the scapes shorter.

I just got my two daylilies from Oakes today. They always come so large! But, the fans are cut so low, I wonder how this short stump of a thing could ever bloom this year!? I shovel pruned two evergreen daylilies to plant the Dream Blue's from Oakes. I'm just not happy with the way the two EV's got spring sickness. I don't yet know what I'll do with those two, but I am just OUT OF ROOM!

Rita,

A bit off topic: Lupines

Found aphids on mine and did a search and found that they are aphid magnets. I'm going to try garlic powder on them first as some link said was useful. Then maybe a systemic if that doesn't work.

Just an FYI.

Aphids are not really a problem around here. Roses are an aphid magnet and the birds just pick them off all day long. I just love those lupines :-))

What is considered too late to plant bare root dl's? Last year I purchased Cosmopolitan and planted it in September. Can I reasonably expect that I will get a bloom this year? Also I purchased Pardon Me, Strawberry Candy and Ruby Stella from nursery in quart size pots. I planted in April, might they bloom?

valtorrez
they should all bloom as long as they're decent sized fans

These posts totally made me smile (as I'm completely ignoring my bucket of daylilies soaking in seaweed)...I had to go buy more containers to plant my DL's in this year and I realized that, once again, the 2.5 cu. ft. bag of potting soil that I went to get. was NOT going to do it for all the ones I needed and I didn't figure in bonuses. Yeeks! I keep promising SO deludedly "This is the lAST bag I'll need. I PROMISE!"
*husband smiles happily while I run off to a drugstore and try to sneak bags of potting mix home*
I think I'm officially done this year other than 1 BIG order coming soon.. as long as I stay blindfolded every time we drive past a nursery.

I don't buy daylilies at local nurseries, I just mail order them. But I buy everything else LOL! The only way I can not come home with plants is too just stay away. Once I walk in, that's it. I'm gonna buy.

Hha. I buy ANYTHING pretty much, Rita, (except impatiens) ..so I try not look *just keep walking.." .. but I actually got my DL start at a local nursery... I'd gone to Hicks for other plants at the end of season and saw all these AMAZING glitteryish (now I know they call it diamond-dusted) flowers and I was like *mesmerized* OMgosh!! what IS that??? and when I read that it was a daylily, I was in shock, b/c I'd sort of had a preconcieved dislike of them, thinking that they were weedy and cheesey yellow. So I bought 3 tubs (Fairy Tale Pink, Amazing Grace, and something very pretty and orange that I can't remember) and I was so euphoric.. I didn't know daylilies could smell, etc. etc.. and then I did research..
so now.. yet another plant craze to add to my list of things I love to get in the ground (or container)

Does planting in pot vs ground effect blooms? I don't plant in pots. I plant everything in ground the minute I get it but I see a lot of pictures with people planting DL's in pot and sometime putting those pots in ground.

Go ahead and plant them in ground like you have been doing. People have various reasons for potting them up but most of us plant in ground right away.

That is were I was today, Hicks. I spent lots LOL! Come on over to the COTTAGE GARDEN Forum and see my threads and all I bought :-))

Here is a link that might be useful: What a great haul at the nursery today.

I plant in pots, because I live in Queens, in an area where concrete is the new "green" so other than a 10 by 10 foot area of dirt, every plant I get must have a pot and dirt for it. I"m pretty sure daylilies do better in the ground, but I've had a LOT survive nasty winters in pots, so I'm really grateful!
K, Rita.. I'm running over to your link. :) Gotta love Hicks. ;)

This is such a great post, Rita. I think that because of what you just went through, I got a dose of reality:) My DH said that 90% of my garden is daylilies. Oh well, so be it.

And I love the assessment about gardeners being healthy and happy!

Vickie

Here is how it went in my garden. I started planting perrenials and butterfly attracting plants and vines to redo my garden starting in 2001. Then added lots of shrubs. By the time I got the rose crazies I was running out of usable garden space. But my yard is multilevel and I had all these places gardens never worked because of the steep slopes. So in 2007 I started with the hardscape and had project after project done these past three years. During that time I concentated on roses, then daylilies and lilies.

Because of the construction and needing to move things, plants that I used to have growing here died out. I was so busy planting daylilies many times I just did not replace them. This year I am on a strong campain to bring back those plants only many times in an improved version. Also started growing things again that were annual but not here for the past few years that I used to grow. All this to make it even more cottage garden and have an endless series of bloom.

It is all coming along pretty good. In case anyone is worried that I am getting rid of my daylilies, its never going to happen. But like the roses with the rose beds, they daylily beds are full. If I want new roses, I have to move stuff around or get rid of something. That is were it is now at with the daylilies.

I don't know why but if a rose displeases me, I have no problems kicking it out in favor of something better. But I just hang on to all my daylilies. I have sent away some that just couldn't cut it but its time to evaluate and stop enlarging beds.

I still have about 30 to put in the ground, but they are all in pots so I have a few weeks to play with. We finally got a really good rain today so it will be several days before I can dig again. I have other plants to go in the ground too, it never ends.

Sharon

No, it doesn't end. For all my complaining, I don't know what I would do without my garden.

Well,all of the last two mail orders for this spring are dug,cleaned and trimmed and only need to be packed in boxes and mailed. Hooray!All of the new ones except 14 ( well, about 35 new ones came in this spring) are planted and those 14 will have to remain potted up for now. The last few perennials have been planted and only about 2 flats of annuals need to be put in. The end is getting closer!! Well, several beds need re-edging again and everything needs to be sprayed once more but those are minor bumps. With scapes everywhere, I'm ready to stand back and start taking pictures and enjoying bloom season. Bring it on!

Best of all, I've nearly reached my goal with downsizing the garden. It's down from 1000 two years ago - 780 at the beginning of the season, and now, even with all the new ones, it's down to 754. I'd hoped for 750 but surely can find a way to get rid of four more.

Done, done, done !!!! I am done planting my spring daylilies. FINIALLY !!! My last order came yesterday in the mail and I planted them today. Note to myself. Do not order any daylilies this fall. None, nada, zip, ziltch.

Amen to that.
Received my last order for 4 plants (which turned to 5 with the bonus) last Wednesday. I managed to squeeze them between 2 beds.
And I am saying no more this year, too. The new bed that I am preparing is for the seedlings -- for the seedlings--for the seedlings.

I love this thread! So many who would need a 12 step program if we really wanted to quit buying. Never happen. I already have one daylily soaking for several days, and I won one on the auction today. I hadn't been on the auction in a while and BINGO, today I go and bid and win. At least it was only one. And I will never be through planting because I keep buying, and so do you, Rita.

kay

No, not me. No buying. Uh, uh. Absolutely not :-(( Lily Auction is off limits and I am not even looking. I will not buy any more daylilies this year. In fact if I want to buy more daylilies, I am going to have to toss something already here. So I will be watching those poor preformers very carefully this bloom season.

Amazing what a bunch of scapes all over the place does as an attidute ajustment. Now that they just started blooming all the planting doesn't seem like such a big deal LOL :-))

Would you believe my final batch of plants are in Mondays mail? I should have them tuesday or wed. Will be glad to be finished. The only DL in bloom here is Lemon Lily. Lots of German iris and the first siberian iris opened. Still earlier here this year and lots of rain..... again...:)...cheers, lloyd