Many are grown in greenhouses under controlled heat, light and humidity and they are given a small amount of fertilizer with every watering. And they might be treated with fungicides and insecticides. Your outdoor garden doesn't have the same conditions. The plants are usually delivered to nurseries (here in NJ, sometime in April) close to peak bloom time, so by the time you get there, they are nicely in bloom. There are some nurseries that pot up bareroot plants, and they also put those plants out for sale just as they start blooming. Under garden conditions, even in the warmer zones, many varieties take 4 - 6 weeks to recycle bloom time.

So sorry about the text in the OP. ;-( It was indeed a copy/paste job from one of my older posts, with a few changes. I hope you find (found?) it worth trying to figure out. Anything we add to our soils that isn't needed and finds it's way into the soil solution has the potential to limit growth/vitality. Many growers cling to the idea that a little more of this or that nutrient is better - for instance that since a little extra Fe or Mg will green up a plant, it must be good for it - true only if the plant is deficient in one or the other of those nutrients. Greener does not mean healthier when it comes at the expense of an excess of one or more nutrients. Since aquarium water contains a number of nutrients, is it necessarily a good idea to use it? So what's actually IN aquarium water - anyone know? Not with any certainty, so it's a very good bet that A) if you use aquarium water as your sole nutrition source, there are bound to be deficiencies, and B) if you combine using aquarium water with a sound nutrition program - 'because a little more of this and that is better' - you end up duplicating nutrients you don't need, which we know from Liebig's Law of the Minimum has the same potential to limit as a deficiency. If you rely on a sound nutrition program with no extra little treats, you're much more apt to end up with a lean mean growing machine. Whenever I consider anything as a supplement that my plant might need, I ask two questions. A) What will it supply that I know my plant needs? and B) What impact will it have on the soil's structure? In the case of worm castings and seaweed (other than emulsion), they supply nothing a plant needs that can't already be found in a fertilizer like Foliage-Pro, and they have only the potential to reduce aeration and increase water retention in container soils; though to an insignificant degree in the case of fish emulsion. So on two counts I would avoid them in my soils. Actually, there is a third consideration. I also tend to avoid the addition of soil amendments added for their nutritive value if I think they will promote significant growth of soil biota. I love it in the garden, but we can grow just fine in containers without courting the micro-herd. If we are going to use practices that support large populations of soil biota that break down soils quickly, why bother building all that wonderful aeration and drainage into our soils, only to have them stolen as our soils collapse in a feeding frenzy of micro-organisms? Growing in containers is well removed from gardening, and much closer to hydroponics. On a scale of 1-10, with growing in the garden being a 1 and hydroponics a 10, container culture is probably a 7 or 8, which is why a good part of what works so well in gardens (compost and organic amendments, worm castings, bone/blood/feather meals, feed the soil instead of the plant, .....) doesn't work well in containers. There's just no substitute for a healthy root system and a sound nutritional supplementation program that the grower assumes responsibility for and control over. Al

Your blooms are lovely. I especially like Wayside Painted Lady. We grew Karen Sue for years and once established, she always had decent scapes. Having scapes shorter than the stats in the database is quite common in plants you planted a year ago. There is an old daylily adage that says the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap. It just takes awhile to get established. As you have discovered, the ones that get established fastest (and it depends on variety) are those you dig from a garden and bring straight home and plant as opposed to those that are shipped. There is usually less damage to the roots and the leaves as well as less time out of the ground. Size of the flower as well as color often improves too as they get established. Nancy

Debra, I discovered a couple of things of keeping out Bermuda grass. 1-it is hard [I'm sure that is not a revelation to anyone who has it!]. 2-Round-up, not it's clones, really kills it. It's clones temporarily kill it then it greens back up. I keep mine out by spraying round-up outside the brick borders a couple times a summer. 3. Round up is really cheaper at Ollies Outlet if you have one near you.