Growing Daylilies Together

November 2007 - The Planting of Seedlings

The seeds were planted in the trays during the summer (late July) and sat in the trays under the Live Oaks for several months un-attended to, with a watering wand on a timer watering twice daily. I lost approximately 6,500 of the 10,000 seeds to damping-off as it was impossible to look after the trays as both John Todd and I were unable to stay in Florida to look after them and plant them in pots at the ideal time. We were actually hoping to close on the land earlier and plant them directly in the ground. Our closing date was in December of the same year which is why we were unable to plant the seedlings directly on the new property.

November came and John Todd had returned home from his travels and Susie Thompson and I drove down from Hazel Green, Alabama and Toronto, Ontario. We then proceeded to clean up John’s property and his raised boxes so that we could plant the 3,500 seedlings into one gallon cheater pots to prevent further loss until they could be planted at the new property. Note: we were on a one week time line, or Tony was threatening to divorce Susie as it is a 45 minute drive for Tony to go home and let their 3 puppies (babies) out to do their business, not to mention his Bartender, Chef and Maid is a much needed commodity in Hazel Green, Alabama. Susie has a really tough job looking after Tony let alone the puppies in Alabama.

John Todd had arrived a week earlier, after being away for a month and a half, to 6 foot tall weeds.
Yes, in Florida the weeds grow inches each day. He managed to get all the weeds sprayed with Lesco 3 Way (use caution with this product when spraying over top of daylilies and weeds. The weeds must be thick and you must follow the directions explicitly.

Spray lightly, your weeds will die and pulling is much easier).

Susie and I then arrived to help pull the dead and dieing weeds, toss them into the rows as you see above and finally move them to the compost pile.

John Todd grows all of his adult plants in pots and his seedlings in raised beds. Notice the flags that he uses to mark special plants. He uses ground cloth to help keep the weeds down somewhat, but they are voracious and can still take over as you can see with dead weeds on the main paths.

These are some of Tony & Susie's seedlings that we transported down to Florida. Soon to be their first plants on the new  property. This was all that would fit in the truck due to all the other things that we had, but it was a good start.

This is John Todd's 60% Peat / 40% Pine Park Mulch (with minors added) Pile. He had purchased it about six months earlier only to find that he ordered double what he needed. The neighbors were thrilled to see Susie and I start putting all that dirt into pots.

Now don't get me wrong, John Todd normally keeps a pristine daylily garden and a mini-tropical paradise on his property, complete with fruit trees, Papaya, Avocado, Mango, Lemons, Oranges, Grape Fruits, Kumquats and a variety of other tropical flowering plants. He also has 3 large aquatic ponds with a HUMONGOUS BULL FROG in one (John Peat has a phobia with toads and frogs, he is absolutely petrified of them. Don't approach him with one as his immediate re-action is to run but if felt cornered he starts swinging his fists).

His lawns were immaculate when we arrived, he just couldn't find a person to deal with the weeds in the daylily section of the property that he could t rust. You can see in the above picture how well maintained the property was during his trip across America by car from Florida to Portland, Oregon.

The sunsets are spectacular in John Todd's back yard, Susie and I witnessed many of them during our several trips to work there the winter of 2007/2008!

After the sunset and it is pitch black out, it is time to prepare dinner. Of course at this time gasoline prices had risen to approximately $4.50 per gallon and any excess money (like there is such a thing) went into the two down payments for the property. We could only afford things made with hamburger.

And tonight the gourmet meal is TACOS! Yup, between Tacos and Hamburger Helper John Peat added about 35 pounds to his normally thin, boyish, sexy - swimmers build.

Time to move to Phase 3 - The planting of seedlings into pots.

More coming . . .

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