Caring for Your Daylilies in the Winter

How to care for your daylilies in the winter. While many of us enjoy spending time in our colourful and fragrant gardens during the spring and summer when winter rolls around the garden can start to look quite bleak and barren. One thing you can do in order to enjoy a brighter, more attractive wintertime garden is to ensure you look after your plants and get them ready for the winter, which includes your daylilies.

There are a number of steps to take in order to ensure that you are able to properly care for your daylilies in the winter. You need to ensure you start preparing during the autumn so that the plants are able to handle the harsher winter climate when it comes around.

Key steps to take

There are a number of key steps that you need to take in order to ensure you are able to care properly for your daylilies when winter comes around. Some of the measures you need to take include:

• Keeping your plants hydrated: If the weather has been quite dry during the autumn, you need to make sure you keep the plants hydrated. You should make sure you water them up until the onset of winter, as if they are not hydrated enough by the times winter rolls around they will struggle to handle the stresses of the colder season. You can stop watering them then the ground starts to freeze over.
• Guard against infection: It is also important to guard against infection from the various diseases that can affect daylilies such as fungal diseases. Make sure you keep an eye on the leaves and remove any infected leaves, which then be properly disposed of to minimise on the risk of re-infection.
• Don’t remove the green leaves: While their leaves are still green, daylilies can continue to grow. Therefore, do not remove any healthy green leaves from your plants during the colder weather. Also, with plants that are dormant do not remove the brown leaves, as these offer added winter protection.
• Winter mulching: You should remember that winter mulching can prove invaluable in terms of dealing with the effects of thawing and re-freezing. If your plants have started to bulge from the soil, make sure you add fresh soil around the base.

These steps can all help to ensure that your daylilies are properly looked after and cared for during the winter.