Im so sorry about your house flooding. Im not sure I understand why in the world you would LOWER the yard if you have drainage problems. A very easy way to temporarily move your plants is to get a lot of the plastic grocery bags, like what they have at Walmart. Just dig the plant, dirt and all, and plop it in the bag. Cut a little hole in the corner so it drains. You can leave them in there as long as you need to. You might want to find a shady spot for them, if you have one. Water them once in a while, and they'll be fine. Ive left them in bags like that for nearly a year, and they were blooming away in them.

Thanks for the suggestion!

The problem is that we're on a hill so we get all the water from the yard behind us, which is on a higher level.
Our backyard filled up like a swimming pool because it couldn't get out of our backyard fast enough. We've lived here for over 20 years and over time we've added dirt and sod several times which raised the dirt level. Now we need to lower it so the water doesn't come in the house so easily.

Laurie

Oh I see. Well, hopefully that will take care of the problem. I cant imagine what you went thru with your house flooding. Hope things get better soon.

IMHO, I would not leave the daylilies in plastic. I would pot them up or if you have space, use a proccess known as "heeling them in". Dig a trench in a shady part of your garden. As you dig up your plants cut the tops back to about 6 inches on the daylilies.
I'm not sure if you have to clean the soil off, if might be best to leave the soil with them cause it does hold the nutrients. Most times reason for cleaning soil off is for shipping or blubs like caladium's that have to be stored.

Hope all goes well.

Hi,

We lowered a very large area of our yard and as a result, it does not grow grass well. I believe that the soil is not as good as it was originally. As we always do, we stockpiled the topsoil. Then we lowered the harder, subsurface dirt and reapplied the topsoil. I think we just didn't get enough of the good topsoil reapplied so the topsoil layer is thinner than it should be.

I am writing to suggest you stockpile your topsoil and guard it with your heart. I would expect that if you can re-spread all of it, you will have wonderful results.

Hang in there - sounds as challenging as a house remodeling project.

Sue

I think to pot or not depends on how many plants you have. With 50 to 75 I would pot them up and then keep the pots cool and out of the way until the construction is finished. If you have hundreds I would find a spot in the yard where nothing will be done and dig them up in clumps and push them all close together and protect them with mulch until the work is done. If your construction proceeds like most it will take much longer than you plan so make sure your plants are prepared for what could be an indefinite stay. I like those 5 gal. black pots the nursery uses and if need be they could still be moved around out of the way.

I agree with the "save your top soil". Even if the landscapers add amendments it still takes work to turn that newly exposed soil into something useable.

Good luck and keep us posted on how the project does (pictures would be nice).

JoAnn

I second Cavamarie's bag idea. I've done it myself. If you carefully dig out your daylilies, keeping all the soil in tact, then you can just plop them right in a bag, leaving the foliage sticking out of the bag, of course. If you are careful and do not disturb the roots, you won't even have to trim the foliage. They'll never know they've been moved. The bags are really just the equivalent of a flimsy pot--both are made of plastic. And depending on clump size, if you wanted to pot them up, you might have to divide the clumps, adding further trauma. With bags, you can get a pretty good size chunk in a bag.

I also second the idea of saving your top soil. You've spent years amending your soil to make it good stuff--black gold. Dig out enough of the lower level soil so your can add your good topsoil back in.

Whatever you do, don't let anyone else dig your plants. Landscapers are often not conscientious and just don't really understand our passion. For the laborers, it's just a job. They'll butcher your plants and lose your tags and charge you a fortune to do it. You are wise to move them yourself.

Thank you for all of the suggestions!

I have about 15 daylilies, so that's not too bad. I can't imagine if I had to move 100.

Sue - They said something about putting 1/2 inch of good topsoil down and then the grass on top of that. They said 1/2 inch was enough because the grass has soil on the bottom of it. I kind of wondered if that was enough. We still have two other landscapers coming out to give us an estimate so I'll see what they say.

The good thing about this is we have terrible clay soil and they said they will be replacing some of that with a better soil. I want to talk to them again and make sure they're putting plenty of good soil in my flowerbeds. Even though I've amended my beds, it still has alot of clay so they will hopefully be removing quite a bit of that.

I really like the plastic bag idea!

Laurie

I guess I'm dumb but my daughter and son-in-law had the same problem being at the bottom of a hill. He dug trenches and laid in drainage pipes with gravel on top. He did this all the way around the house to the street. Didn't touch the flower beds. It worked great and they live in Pa where it normally rains a lot. When he put in new beds though, he built drainage into the edges of the beds. All their flowers beds are raised. You might want to consider raised beds for your flowers since you will be redoing your whole yard. I have included some pictures of how he did the beds when he built new ones. Just a suggestion for an alternate plan.
The plastic bag idea sounds good for your plants.
Dot

here he is installing drainage in the beds
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this is the back side of the house that gets all the water from the hill, the water runs down the front of the beds to the street, the big drain runs behind the shed and around the other side of the house
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it is all finished now and planted and looks beautiful
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Dot - Is that you or your daughter in the last picture?

I would love to have raised beds, but I just don't know if there's any way I could make that work. Alot of my beds are around the foundation of the house and we have to lower that to keep the water from coming in the house. Now we do have one bed that's up against a retaining wall and the landscaper said he does want to raise that one.

What part of Pa does your daughter live in. My husband's family is from there. Most of them are in Johnstown, about 1 1/2 hours from Pittsburgh.

Laurie

That is my daughter and she lives outside of Lancaster Pa. I'm so sorry to hear about your flooding, I'm lucky and live on a little hill and we have good drainage here. Your house is nice and since it was on a raised area I never would have believed that you would have had flooding, but of course you are not at the top of the hill apparently. Good luck.

Dot

I've used the plastic bag method with good results for atleast 2 weeks. BE SURE TO STORE THEM IN FULL SHADE!!!! Any plastic bag that receives direct sun light will cook the plants within it if there is one drop of moisture in them. HOpes this helps, Mona

Msrose, If your house sit's like the one over by me I know the problem your having. A lot of the houses on the main street sit's below us and when it rained 5 plus inches the water had nowhere to go and rushed into their homes.
The french drain is good but I wonder if it would work in this case.
It was more like a flood instead of to much rain and the soil not draining. Plus the soil was already soaked.

Now that the rain has slowed way down I'd check around to see what would work best for your back yard. Like you said you've lived there 20 years and this is the first time it's ever happened so what are the chances of it happening again this time of year?

BTW, Kristi told me you made it over to Carrie's house, I thought about going but needed to work in my own yard, sorry I missed the chance to met you. Maybe you'll come to one of our swaps?

Barb

Barb - Aw, I wish you could have gone also. It's always so nice to put faces with names. Carrie was such a sweetheart and took me on a tour of her yard.

We've also wondered if we'll ever have this kind of crazy weather again, but after flooding three times this year, we decided we'd rather be safe than sorry. We do have two other landscapers coming to give up their opinions so I'm anxious to see what they say.

Laurie

I totally agree with the plastic bag idea (in full shade, of course) I have kept clumps I have dug for weeks that way and after I re-planted them, they didn't skip a step! To plant them twice makes no sense. Even heeling them in is more work than I would care to put into the project.

I hear ya, I would not want to have water running into my house either. I was just saying you do have some time to see who is best for the job and how different their answers are to your problem. I hope you find a good company to do the work and all comes out good.
It was a very off year for rain we're now at our yearly amount and we still have 5 more months to go. Fall can be a rainy season for us.
It shows rain for tomorrow 60% chance rest of the week 40 to 20 % chance.
Hi Ladylovingdove, I didn't notice we're neighbors :)
Boy, what I would give to have a hubby make up my beds for me. Your SIL did a beautiful job.

Thanks Barb, I wish he could do some beds for me too LOL. I do have some flower beds but they are full of irises and weeds after all this rain. But my lilies are all in big pots so they are much easier to weed for me. He has done some fencing for me when he visits and other odd jobs.

MsRose, here is what greeted me this morning. This late I don't have much left blooming but this aptly named one from the Stamiles this spring. Three open flowers on one stalk and they are huge. Enjoy, I know I sure did.

Dot

Last Snowflake showing off

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Moonlight Sail is almost done, it bloomed it's head off late also
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Dot - Those are beautiful! I made the mistake of picking mostly early bloomers so mine are done now.

Laurie