Growing Daylilies Together

When is the best time to cut back foliage for the winter? Do you let nature do it with the first really hard freeze? If so, do I need to dispose of the dead mush at this time? I'm in zone 7 and we usually don't have a really bad freeze until Nov and some years Dec. I've always let mother nature take care of it for me, but I've got about 30 pots out of my 1500 with rust. I want to be sure that I do a really good job of cleaning up. My rust has been very minor. It came in on some plants bought early Spring from California. I think. It only spread to the close ones and caused very little damage. I did treat and distroy leaves as I found any rust. I don't panic anymore about this. It's just a fact of living in my zone. I realize that those little tiny spores may be hiding everywhere, that's why I want to clean up so good this year.

Or, is it better to do it before they freeze? Also, how close to the crown do I cut?

Another person asked on the daylily Garden Web and she lives in zone 9?? I thought I would give her an answer over there.

Mona,

I've been cutting my foliage back the last couple of days to about 6" here in my zone 5 garden. We have not had our first frost yet but I cut them back this time of year to about this height every season. Many people do not cut theirs back at all but I hate looking out my windows all winter at dead foliage and I don't want to have to be out there in cold weather doing it.

I leave at least 6" because on my seedlings I need to know what their plant habit is for potential registration later and the only way to find this out is to keep track of the foliage through the winter. Since I cut back my seedlings this tall and seedlings are the bulk of my daylilies, I cut the older cultivars back this far too so everything looks consistently the same height.
It seems I get rust on a few daylilies almost every year in August as well as in the lawn on the shady side of the house. I don't know where it comes from but I know it's rust. My lawnmower is covered with it as well as my shoes. Thankfully our winters here kill it so I don't worry about it.

Becki

I'm with Becky on this. You don't have to cut the foliage back at all in the fall and many prefer to wait until spring but I really, really, really hate looking at ratty daylily foliage. This week I cut all of mine back about 8" as I have in the past. In the spring I just clean up any dead foliage. Ratty foliage is why I have never had dl's in the front of the house. Maybe if the foliage was at least variegated it would look less rattier.

I always leave the foilage on my daylilies over winter for a little extra added protection during our long very cold winters here in Minnesota. I would rather have unsightly foilage for awhile than to possibly lose plants.

I leave the foliage until spring also. I'm in zone 4 and I think the foliage is a natural mulch. I didn't used to, but I've started removing the foliage in the spring because the earwigs really love to live in a dark moist environment, and I really hate earwigs.