Growing Daylilies Together

My dog kicked over about ten bowels of crosses last month. I put the mixed seeds in the ground and 15 are growing! I'm watering them but I'm not sure if they will live through winter? I'm a zone 5 Massachusetts. Any advice would be great. Thanks everyone.

I would think that the ones that sprouted have a better chance of making it than the ones that don't sprout before the ground freezes.

You could also mulch the new seedlings and even cover them with pine boughs after the ground freezes to help protect them.
The killer is the freeze thaw cycle all winter.
Watch for any of them to push up roots out of the ground when it freezes and thaws. If they push out of the ground and are exposed, they may die. Just gently push them back down into the soil, making sure not to damage the new little crown.

Those are some ideas. Hope it helps you. Let us know what happens with them.

Nina

Thanks for the advice Nina
I just finished mulching them. I gave them about an inch of pine bark mulch. They are only about 4 inches tall and I want them to grow as much as possible before the real cold hits.

Zach,
I'll be really interested to hear how the seedlings that sprouted survive your winter. Curt Hanson shared with me a month or so ago that he plants ALL his seeds in the ground in the late fall AFTER the first hard frost (so they don't sprout until spring) and has done so for many years (he's in Ohio zone 5). Maybe your unsprouted ones will make it after all. I'm going to try Curt's method myself this year as an experiment. I sure hope I don't lose them all!

I'm thinking your seedlings might be just fine too, especially since you mulched them. The bigger issue, like Nina said, will be if they heave out of the ground at any point during the winter and are exposed to the elements. It's not the freezing that will hurt them since they're perennials, its the drying out and lack of moisture with the exposure that would be the kiss of death.

Keep us posted!

Becki

Hi, Becki.

Did Curt give you any details on how he plants out his seeds? Normal depth of 1/4"? Does he mulch them? I wonder about the crazy warm ups we sometimes have in January....I'm thinking a couple inches of mulch would keep the ground frozen so that they wouldn't sprout too early and then take a hit when the weather goddess decides that it's still winter in March.

A seed is a seed. Mother Nature has been letting seeds sit in/on the ground for a very long time and plants sprout from them every year.

I have seeds that sprout every year in the seedling beds that I missed/too late to harvest. Some might not make it but most will.

Just saying.