Good Morning,
For those subscribers that already have daylilies, you should be watering your daylilies so that the daylilies are kept moist now leading up to flowering in about six weeks time, by doing this you will have the best flowers possible some fertiliser low in nitrogen is also beneficial at this time of year, now that the frosts are pretty well over in the colder climates. Mulch your daylilies to get prepared for the hot summer to come, keeping the mulch a little away from the daylily stems of the plants. You can find the best mulches to use and why and what the mulch contains, why some mulches are better than others at this link https://www.dayliliesinaustralia.com.au/the-best-mulches-to-use-for-gardening/
If you don’t already know, and you would like to make new daylilies plants by seed, pollinating your existing daylilies growing in your garden, is easy to do.
Follow the steps off my website https://www.decadentdaylilies.com/hybridizing-daylilies/
Taking particular notice of this sentence below
While the daylily flowers are in bloom, remove the pollen from the end of one of the six stamens, found at the centre of the flower, on one breed of daylily and rub the pollen on the tip of the single stigma on the end of the pistil, also found at the centre of the flower, on another breed making sure that you cross a Tetraploid with a Tetraploid and a Diploid with a Diploid otherwise the cross will not work. Sometimes the tip of the pistil can be split if the pistil is split you can cut the pistil off with a sharp pair of scissors then pollinate as normal.
Where to find if the daylily is a tetraploid (tet) or a Diploid (dip)
This is found in the description of the daylily plant for example:
Wild Cherry Round Up – Trimmer 2003 – Tet – Height 24″ – EM – Evergreen – Fragrant – Single – Bloom 5″
OR
Daylily Cleopatra – Thomas 1964 – Dip – Height 33” – Early – Evergreen – Spider – Bloom 5″
https://www.decadentdaylilies.com/product/cleopatra.html
Cleopatra can be hybridised with Counselor Bill below because it is another diploid (dip) even though Cleopatra is a spider daylily and Counselor Bill is a Double daylily this doesn’t matter as long as they are both diploids or dip
Daylily Counselor Bill – Hansen 1992 – Dip – 24″ – L – SEv – Double – Bloom 5″
https://www.decadentdaylilies.com/product/counselor-bill.html
Always remember to pollinate a tetraploid with a tetraploid and a diploid with a diploid. Sometimes the description will say that the daylily is fertile both ways, then, in this case, you can pollinate that daylily with either type of ploidy being diploid or a tetraploid. If you are successful you will then have a seed pod form where the spent flower was, that you pollinated a few weeks back, but do not harvest the seed pod until it is old and brown and starting to split at this stage the seeds should be black, keep the seed fresh in the fridge until you want to sow the seed,
Happy Gardening Christine,