I am laughing because I have made so many well-intentioned mistakes since starting daylilies!

The first daylilies I bought at a garage sale, dug holes and stuck 'em in in front of each post of the wood rail fence along the road, and promptly forgot about them. They thrived for several years amongst the native grasses and weeds, and even overcame the occasional complete cut-back from workers with weed-eaters. I never fertilized them or watered them. They grew in spite of me.

I should have stopped right there. That was my first mistake. When I found out I could cross-pollinate them, my maternal instincts took over, and there's been a steady parade of expansion, making daylily babies along with a lot of trial-and-error ever since.

I used to play and arrange music, build websites, paint, refinish furniture, make jewelry, and try out recipes. That was all "before-daylilies." Now I have a music studio that seldom gets used, no daylily website yet, no new paintings, furniture that still needs refinishing, countless beads and jewelry making supplies stashed away in bins, and only manage to do fancy cooking on occasion. That was before my addiction.

You could pot up the rest that won't fit and grow them in pots if you cannot bring yourself to discard them. Tommy Maddox grows his seedlings in pots and keeps them in water beds so he doesn't have to water them. Thinking that was a capital idea, I bought some kiddy wading pools this summer and have started expanding by putting some proliferations in one of them. I am completely out of space in the daylily beds, but since I am obsessed with soaking and starting seeds, I'll have to resort to pots in kiddy pools. (Hubby has put his foot down and refuses to let me to put in water beds.) LOL My latest mistake was failing to tell the yard man not to run his mower so that the kiddy pool fills up with grass clippings.

Cheers,

Nancy

Oh do we all have stories to tell. This gardening business and the daylily business is on the job training...and you do learn from your mistakes. I have a major bed reworking to do of mine own when it cools a bit. It is too crowded...sound familiar? Just grin and keep going.
kay

Nancy, I know someone who does something like that as well. I haven't seen it, but he described sunken planting areas full of water that the pots are set down in. I asked if mosquitoes are a problem, and I think he said he uses dish soap to keep them from being able to reproduce in the water.

Nate

It's nice to know that I'm not alone! :oP My husband gave me a head-shake when I told I had to buy more dirt this year....again. I know he thinks I'm nutzoid. Oh well.

Hello, my name is Dani...I have a slight problem with planting too many seeds.

I started growing from seed 2 years ago. In the sprng, I planted 40 seedlings in a 3' X 18' bed. By the end of the year all had grown well. By the next year half of them had flowered. I decided to leave them til this year and now they are really BIG. I know I have to move them to wide open spaces (we live on a farm and I'll probably just move some into the field) but I also know I have to cull some. I've learned to cull the ones I don't think will improve any more, cull the small ones because I prefer big flowers in my garden, cull the ones I think are just butt ugly. Then I have to plant the next years seedlings and start all over again - an addictive cycle. I can't stop now. As for weeds, they keep coming no matter what. I put down corn gluten to keep weed seeds from germinating, unfortunately it doesn't work on established weeds. Right now I have just about every thistle in the county here. I don't know what kind they are but they're the ones with smooth stems and they're easy to pull out. Whatever you decide to do, good luck! Marg

I would try to find someplace to plant the smalls and extra smalls. I find some seedlings get shaded out by the bigger ones and don't grow as much. One I have that was very small is now growing like cornstalk since I dug up and discarded two inferior seedlings on one side of it.

Debra