In the ground is far easier than any other method. Pots don't always drain well, or wet well. It is common for the water to run down the sides of pots and wash the dirt away from the roots. If some soil is heavy and some soil is light the pots do not absorbe water at the same rate and you can have them too dry and too wet at the same time.

In the ground the roots can go deep but in pots they can easily get root bound.

You need to go to daylily Mecca (Orlando, FL) in May and see how Stamile, Trimmer, Hansen, Kinnebrew (raised beds in pots), and Frank Smith do it. (Also Abajian, Lambertson, and Rielly are in the same area.) You can ask the pros what they have tried and what works and why they do it the way they do.

I asked Jan Joiner how she plants, and she uses a seed wheel that spaces the seeds 4" apart and just walks down the row and plants all of her seeds.

Bob Carr uses little pots in a tray in a greenhouse to plant his seeds. A friend of mind tried the Bob Carr method and had disasterous results so what works for one will not necessarily give the same results to another. Keep in mind Florida has sandy soil. I have heavy clay so they water daily with free water pumped from a well. I pay one of the highest rates in the nation for water, my water bill for a small back yard 120 feet wide and 40 feet deep was $437 last month. Dan Hansen waters over 3 acres for about $8 a month.

Jeff Salter uses raised beds but they are a lot of work and a lot of expense. To my knowledge all but Carr plant their 1st year seedlings right in the ground. I think raised beds give a lot of satisfaction for those who need the illusion of control. In the end they are expensive, time consuming, inflexible, and entropy destroys raised beds. They can leak at the corners. Smith uses raised beds but he has a crew and lots of money. Most hybridizers in FL have greenhouses so they use benches and pots in the greenhouse but plant in the ground for most of thier plants.

Karol Emmerich uses a greenhouse but plants right in the ground in the greenhouse.

In the end most use pots for some applications and the ground for other applications but the only ones I know that use raised beds is Salter, and Kinnebrew who uses cinderblocks with planting boxes setting on the cinder boxes filled with dirt.

It is easier to use a watering system for pots that are in rows, with all the same soil and all the same size, but the system itself must be maintained.

Again there are several methods to keep things organized. What are you going to do with all the plants? Will you sell them? Who will you sell them too? Will you have a catalog or walk in traffic or sell them on the internet or a combination?

The most organized system I saw was John Shooter. He has labels in the garden with a bar code, much like you see in a grocery store. He uses a bar code reader to scan the bar code right out in the garden and puts in an inventory count. That is downloaded into the computer. When he sells a plant a label is printed and the inventory is automatically adjusted right off the computer program.

They use golf carts to get around and go out with the printed labels and dig the order and bring it back to an area where they can wash, trim, and deliver the plants. For walk in traffic the entire clump is left with all the foliage and they tie it into a bundle and hand it to the customer.

Most of the other hybridizers I have seen plant in a row and they just lift out the item sold and hand it to the customer although most also have some in pots where the customer can just pick up the pot and take it to the sales area.

Hi Gary,
Thanks for the response. I am just approaching the sales stage of operation. The soil I have to work with is a sandy loam that has some clay in it. I have to add a lot of organic matter to make it soft enough for the roots to penetrate. Also I am surronded by scrub and weeds so I want to make the beds easyer to maintain. Since I have to go through the trouble of amending the soil I figured it would be easier in the long run to line the plants out in wood supported raised beds, with drip irrigation, for plants that I am multiplying and put plants in pots for easy sale.
I have not explored the best way people will want the plants in my situation, but I will assume that they will prefer picking a plant out of a group of potted flowering plants or walking through the place and picking from the ground.
My seedlings go right into prepared inground beds. I feel that gives them a good test if they will make it in the conditions of this area. I do not baby the plants and the plants I give away have always done well in other areas.
My aim at this point since I only have one acre to work in, is not to make this a big operation but to have a sufficient turn over of plants so that I can have enough room to continue to hybridize.
Thank you for the advice above.
Mike

I have all raised beds in the front, and in the ground in the back. The front used to be an old horse pasture and is the lowest spot in the neighbor. So when it rains lots, that area floods.

My "normal" soil has a lot of clay, so the soil I added to make the raised beds is just wonderful to dig in, but you have to keep adding soil as it leaches into the ground. And yes, I've tried all kinds of fabric, etc. under them.

The soil in the back is tough to dig in and harder to dig the daylilies out. I much prefer to dig in the front.

I wouldn't do potted plants for many of the reasons stated above, especially in my climate.