The Best Way To Fertilize Daylilies In Early Spring – How To Get Bigger Blooms This Year!

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated
<v Speaker 1>to keeping the yard of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding.
<v Speaker 1>Now Here are your hosts, Jim and Mary Competti.
<v Speaker 2>Hello and welcome everybody. I'm Jim Competti, your host along
<v Speaker 2>with my wife Mary Competti. We are back, and we
<v Speaker 2>are back. You know, it has been a while since
<v Speaker 2>we have dropped a podcast episode for the Simple Garden
<v Speaker 2>Life Podcast, but there's been good reason. We took about
<v Speaker 2>a twelve month hiatus while we finished building this farm,
<v Speaker 2>and boy was it an undertaking.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think we're quite finished yet.
<v Speaker 2>Now we are not quite finished yet, but we are
<v Speaker 2>going to have a full slate of podcasts this spring
<v Speaker 2>and summer and fall, and we're really excited to be back.
<v Speaker 2>We got a lot of emails over the last twelve
<v Speaker 2>months and we answered everyone but saying, hey, when are
<v Speaker 2>you gonna have new a podcast? When are you going
<v Speaker 2>to drop them? But we just really felt like it
<v Speaker 2>was important for us to get this farm underway so
<v Speaker 2>that we can handle visitors and handle all the things.
<v Speaker 2>Also really put our effort into it.
<v Speaker 4>It really gave us a lot more experience to talk
<v Speaker 4>about different things that we've encountered here at the farm.
<v Speaker 2>It did well. We're going to get into our podcast
<v Speaker 2>today about day lilies and fertilizing them, but we do
<v Speaker 2>want to remind everybody. One of the things that we
<v Speaker 2>can now do and we're excited about this year is
<v Speaker 2>host more events here and the biggest one we have
<v Speaker 2>coming up is in April eighteenth, Saturday, which is our
<v Speaker 2>Garden Conference. We go around the country a lot and
<v Speaker 2>speak about gardening and vegetable gardening, and now we have
<v Speaker 2>the event center and we can do it here.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we're bringing people to our own facility this year.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So if you want information on that, you can
<v Speaker 2>go to our main farm site here which is owgarden
<v Speaker 2>dot com and it's right at the top header. You
<v Speaker 2>can also see all about the farm and see everything
<v Speaker 2>we've been doing. But hey, we're here for a podcast,
<v Speaker 2>so let's get into it. And today one of our
<v Speaker 2>favorite subjects really is talking about daylilies, and something people
<v Speaker 2>don't think about a lot is fertilizing them. You know,
<v Speaker 2>you just don't. It's not a plant or our perennial.
<v Speaker 2>I should say that requires a ton of energy, but
<v Speaker 2>boy can a little bit of fertilizer go along way
<v Speaker 2>with them.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>If you're looking for those bright, big blooms and the
<v Speaker 4>blooming bigger than ever, fertilizing really is the key.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the best time. The best time to fertilize
<v Speaker 2>is in early spring. And when I say early spring,
<v Speaker 2>i'm talking about when those dailies are just starting to
<v Speaker 2>peek up, or even before they've even started to come
<v Speaker 2>through that green. Sometimes dailies you'll get a little bit
<v Speaker 2>of a warm spell we have it here and you'll start
<v Speaker 2>to see a little green growth. It's still okay to
<v Speaker 2>fertilize at that time, but the earlier you get it in,
<v Speaker 2>the more it's going to do for your plants. And
<v Speaker 2>we'll kind of go through that. We're also going to
<v Speaker 2>go through some other things Mary, which is very important
<v Speaker 2>of spring care for your day lilies prior to fertilizing,
<v Speaker 2>and that is clearing them back and deciding whether or
<v Speaker 2>not you need to, you know, maybe divide them if
<v Speaker 2>they're getting overgrown.
<v Speaker 3>Right, that's everything that you need to do before you fertilize.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean early spring really happens to be the
<v Speaker 2>ideal time to do all kinds of simple maintenance on
<v Speaker 2>day lilies. It just it gives them not just a
<v Speaker 2>dose of powerf for you're fertilizing, but it also cleans
<v Speaker 2>up your plants and divide and transplant those overgreen, overgrown transplants,
<v Speaker 2>because when they get arch, bad things happen.
<v Speaker 4>And I always get the question too of I don't
<v Speaker 4>remember where my daily lilies were planted. So but I
<v Speaker 4>bet if you go back through your photos from last year,
<v Speaker 4>you probably took a picture.
<v Speaker 3>Or two of them.
<v Speaker 2>That's right. That foldleads really dies back and it's hard
<v Speaker 2>to find them. But in the springtime, the first thing
<v Speaker 2>you want to do, the first order of business with
<v Speaker 2>your dailies is to get outside, as Mary says, make
<v Speaker 2>sure you find all of them and clear that old
<v Speaker 2>fooliage that has died off if you did not do
<v Speaker 2>it in the fall and mulch them. You want to
<v Speaker 2>clear that back now. And people say, well, I've never
<v Speaker 2>done that before. Do I really need to do that?
<v Speaker 2>What it allows is for your day lilies to burst
<v Speaker 2>through the earth a little bit closer. And also when
<v Speaker 2>you pull that back, let's you see how big they
<v Speaker 2>are and whether or not you should divide. And we
<v Speaker 2>get a question like how often should you really divide them?
<v Speaker 2>You know, for us, it's what about every three to
<v Speaker 2>five years? Right?
<v Speaker 4>This depends on how big of your mult bed space
<v Speaker 4>that you have, depending on where or if you want
<v Speaker 4>to put them somewhere else on your property.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's the thing. For us. We used to divide
<v Speaker 2>them every two or three years because we were trying
<v Speaker 2>to build up our plant stock. And you can really
<v Speaker 2>get a lot of nice plants f you can really
<v Speaker 2>let them go three to five years without harming or
<v Speaker 2>reducing the amount of blooms. When daylies get too big,
<v Speaker 2>the problem with them is that the foliage on top
<v Speaker 2>gets so thick and the blooms have a hard time
<v Speaker 2>and they start to be less and less impressive every year.
<v Speaker 2>That three to five year mark really keeps them really
<v Speaker 2>good and strong for sure.
<v Speaker 4>And one thing you need to do before you when
<v Speaker 4>you start to clear off the areas of the old foliage,
<v Speaker 4>you want to also clear off the amount of leaves
<v Speaker 4>to breathe that are around those plants as well, because
<v Speaker 4>they've been sitting there all winter long and you want
<v Speaker 4>to get that soil warmed up as quick as you can.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, So before you fertilize the first thing to do
<v Speaker 2>is clean all that out, get them ready to go,
<v Speaker 2>and if you feel like you need to divide them,
<v Speaker 2>now is the time. So we get this question all
<v Speaker 2>the time. You can really divide a day lily anytime
<v Speaker 2>during the growing season. Early spring, summer, even fall is
<v Speaker 2>really excellent. But early spring has some great advantages. First
<v Speaker 2>of all, even if they've come through the ground a
<v Speaker 2>little bit, digging them up, chopping them up into even
<v Speaker 2>sizes like a stea in your daily we can get
<v Speaker 2>evewhere from four to eight new plants from it's not
<v Speaker 2>going to harm them. Even if that foliage dies off,
<v Speaker 2>it's going to come right back through within a week,
<v Speaker 2>and your dayla is going to be strong. If you
<v Speaker 2>do it in the early spring, especially late winter, they're
<v Speaker 2>still going to bloom. Even the smaller area, they're still
<v Speaker 2>going to bloom that year.
<v Speaker 3>Grow pretty quick too.
<v Speaker 2>They grow super fast, especially when you give them a
<v Speaker 2>little bit of extra fertilizer. Just all you got to
<v Speaker 2>do is dig around the edges. They're very durable. You
<v Speaker 2>do not have to worry about this. They're not going
<v Speaker 2>to kill them if you slice into too much. We've
<v Speaker 2>actually before, you know, I always tell people with any
<v Speaker 2>type of perennial. Dig it up, get it in the
<v Speaker 2>ground that day, it's going to help it. We've let
<v Speaker 2>dailies go before, they've been discarded on a pile. We
<v Speaker 2>forgot about for weeks at a time, even after frost
<v Speaker 2>and freeze, and still put them in and they're still
<v Speaker 2>going to go. But you not recommend that. No, No,
<v Speaker 2>the easier and the faster you can do it. That
<v Speaker 2>that first day is really important. So so dig around
<v Speaker 2>the edges, pop them up, divide them when you put
<v Speaker 2>them back in. We always like to put a little
<v Speaker 2>bit of compost with ours. They don't require a ton.
<v Speaker 2>It's not like you have to put great potty soil.
<v Speaker 2>You want to put a little bit of worm castings
<v Speaker 2>in with them, that's fine, they don't need it. But
<v Speaker 2>let's talk about fertilizing, because fertilizing is really a big thing. Mary,
<v Speaker 2>I think you wanted to hit something right before that.
<v Speaker 2>I did.
<v Speaker 3>I just had a quick question.
<v Speaker 4>A lot of people ask, too, how deep should they
<v Speaker 4>dig because Daylyi's roots are not like typical plants.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, we can pop them out with the shovel
<v Speaker 2>pretty quickly, maybe six inches down at the most. If
<v Speaker 2>they're really healthy, they might go down to eight even
<v Speaker 2>if they're big. So that's all you really need to
<v Speaker 2>do when you're planning new ones. I always like to
<v Speaker 2>loosen the soil down six to eight inches, and then
<v Speaker 2>when you're replanting them, plant them so that the crown
<v Speaker 2>of that is right to the soil level.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so should you dig up the whole plant or
<v Speaker 4>can you just divide a daily that's already in the
<v Speaker 4>ground and.
<v Speaker 3>Just cut it in half?
<v Speaker 2>Pends how tired you are that spring. No, Actually, it's
<v Speaker 2>always a good idea to take the entire plan out.
<v Speaker 2>It keeps it nicer, it keeps it a little better. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>you can chisel off some sides of the plant and
<v Speaker 2>do them, but we like getting that out because it
<v Speaker 2>loosens that whole root structure and then you replant. You
<v Speaker 2>can replant a larger section there if you want to
<v Speaker 2>keep those big. But when you go to taking other places,
<v Speaker 2>you just take us sharp shovel or you know a
<v Speaker 2>hoary hoary knife, which is fantastic. You can slice right
<v Speaker 2>through those roots and then I said plant them in again.
<v Speaker 2>So that's the same level was before. We always like
<v Speaker 2>if there's a little bit of green on top to
<v Speaker 2>leave that, or even a little of the dead stems
<v Speaker 2>from last year an inch or so for the very
<v Speaker 2>reason you talked about. I don't know where my dailies are.
<v Speaker 2>But if you plant a twelve to eighteen inch clump
<v Speaker 2>and you divide it into four equal slices, you're going
<v Speaker 2>to get plants that year that are about twelve inches
<v Speaker 2>when they mature, which are really a beautiful size, nice ballooms,
<v Speaker 2>and those are going to last for three to five
<v Speaker 2>years without having to worry.
<v Speaker 3>All right, So how to dig them up?
<v Speaker 4>You go around the outside of the whole dailyly correct,
<v Speaker 4>you pop them out, You lay.
<v Speaker 3>It over and a side, and you cut it into
<v Speaker 3>different sized pieces.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then you put them right in, like I said,
<v Speaker 2>a little compost with them and that's it. And then
<v Speaker 2>once they're in, or if your daylilies were not large
<v Speaker 2>enough and you don't need to, now it's time to fertilize.
<v Speaker 2>And we talk about this all the time. There are
<v Speaker 2>several ways you can fertilize. We're going to talk about
<v Speaker 2>what we use a lot, which is a very base
<v Speaker 2>ten ten ten or a five to five to five.
<v Speaker 2>But if you want to go the one hundred percent.
<v Speaker 2>The first of all, there are organic fertilizers that you
<v Speaker 2>can use in those ranges, but some people say, I
<v Speaker 2>don't want to use any type of traditional fertilizer, So
<v Speaker 2>I always tell them the go to, which is worm
<v Speaker 2>castings in compost. If you're going to fertilize your DayLA's
<v Speaker 2>with that. You can do it right on the surface
<v Speaker 2>the same way, a few inches around the crown of compost.
<v Speaker 2>I think we use what an eight of a cup
<v Speaker 2>maybe per plant, per large plant of worm castings. If
<v Speaker 2>you mix those two and put them in the soil,
<v Speaker 2>water it in right the day you do that, whether
<v Speaker 2>you're we're going to talk about regular fertilizing too, but
<v Speaker 2>water in it does one of two things. If it
<v Speaker 2>is a fertilizer, it keeps any any of the plant
<v Speaker 2>from being burnt at all. But second of all, it
<v Speaker 2>activates it compost. Yeah, so that's that's a really big key,
<v Speaker 2>and you have to make sure to do that and
<v Speaker 2>if it just really activates the process. So let's take
<v Speaker 2>a break right now, Mary, and we'll come back and
<v Speaker 2>we'll go through the actual fertilizing. If you're using a
<v Speaker 2>granular fertilizer, how to do it, and then how to
<v Speaker 2>take care of those daylilies through the season to make
<v Speaker 2>sure you're getting the most blooms and maybe a second bloom. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>we are back and we're talking about fertilizing daylilies and
<v Speaker 2>right to that point where if you're not going to
<v Speaker 2>go the compost and worm casting one hundred percent organic
<v Speaker 2>route and you want to use a little bit of
<v Speaker 2>regular fertilizer, what to use and Mary, we were talking
<v Speaker 2>it to break how important it is to know what
<v Speaker 2>those numbers mean in fertilizers. And this is a great point.
<v Speaker 2>We talk about ten ten ten, and what ten ten
<v Speaker 2>ten means really is equal amounts amounts.
<v Speaker 3>It's a very standardized fertilizer, very balanced. So you know
<v Speaker 3>the three numbers that you'll see you'll see on the
<v Speaker 3>front of.
<v Speaker 4>The bags or the back of the bag. So you
<v Speaker 4>really want to look for that balance fertilizer. You have
<v Speaker 4>ten ten ten for us.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that first number of the ten ten ten
<v Speaker 2>is the nitrogen. The second number will always be phosphorus,
<v Speaker 2>and the third number is going to be potassium. And
<v Speaker 2>each of those serve a different purpose for the plant.
<v Speaker 2>Dailies are a very base perennial, very strong paranal. We
<v Speaker 2>talked about it for it. Do they really have to
<v Speaker 2>be fertilized to bloom, No, they're going to bloom. This
<v Speaker 2>just gives them a little bit extra, a little healthier.
<v Speaker 2>So that's why we said you can go with an
<v Speaker 2>all purpose and all by all purpose means it's equal
<v Speaker 2>numbers five five, five or ten ten ten.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and dalilies really are heavy fears. They like a
<v Speaker 4>lot of nutrients and they typically get it out of
<v Speaker 4>the ground. But given this extra boost will really make
<v Speaker 4>a big difference in the performance of your.
<v Speaker 2>Daily That's correct, and that's this is a great time
<v Speaker 2>to talk about with fertilizers what those numbers actually do
<v Speaker 2>for the plants. So a lot of times we'll get
<v Speaker 2>calls in the summer our emails about like, my plants
<v Speaker 2>are bright green, my flowers, my annuals, my whatever, my
<v Speaker 2>vegetable plants they're bright green, but they're not producing blooms
<v Speaker 2>or flowers, And right away, Mary and I know both
<v Speaker 2>right away. Almost always that means those plants are getting
<v Speaker 2>way too much nitrogen, which is all about the growth
<v Speaker 2>of a plant, and not enough phosphorus and potassium.
<v Speaker 5>Right, And if you have old old daylilies that you
<v Speaker 5>don't want it to and you don't want to split,
<v Speaker 5>and you like your big batch, but your flowers are
<v Speaker 5>becoming less and less every year, try to pick up
<v Speaker 5>a fertilizer that's less nitroten.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, a little bit heavier on the phosphorus and potassium.
<v Speaker 2>But for most almost always, you can use a base
<v Speaker 2>five five, five, ten, ten ten four dailas and it's
<v Speaker 2>going to perform great. So how much that's a great question.
<v Speaker 2>So we're going to go with that standard twelve to
<v Speaker 2>eighteen inch sized daily plant. And for that, what do
<v Speaker 2>we use I would say about what do you think.
<v Speaker 4>About an eighth of a pub which is really about
<v Speaker 4>two tablespoons per plant?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and we kind of do that. Daily lilies are
<v Speaker 2>a clump former, so we try to do that just
<v Speaker 2>right around those edges, not right on top of the plant,
<v Speaker 2>because that's important, yeah, because it can burn the plant.
<v Speaker 2>But again, once we put that fertilizer around the edges,
<v Speaker 2>the very next thing we do is, well we actually
<v Speaker 2>do two things with fertilizer. We take most of you
<v Speaker 2>know what I'm talking about a little garden tool that
<v Speaker 2>has a little three prongs. It's like a trough almost.
<v Speaker 2>That's a great tool that once you fertilize your plants
<v Speaker 2>to just kind of scrape the earth around there. It
<v Speaker 2>doesn't pull up all the soil, but what it does
<v Speaker 2>is allow some of those granules to get in. And
<v Speaker 2>these are slow release granules that over the next two
<v Speaker 2>to three months are going to feed your plants. They're
<v Speaker 2>not going to give it that boost like liquid does
<v Speaker 2>boom all at once. They're going to go around. But
<v Speaker 2>by doing that, you set them in the soil and
<v Speaker 2>then once you do that watering. It's such a key.
<v Speaker 4>So the ten ten fertilizer that we're talking about are
<v Speaker 4>the granule granular form.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, you really want to stay away from liquid fertilizing
<v Speaker 2>dailays and other perennials. You can do it if they're
<v Speaker 2>struggling a little bit to give them a little boost,
<v Speaker 2>but that's going to be an instant feed. You want
<v Speaker 2>low and slow. We talk about it all the time,
<v Speaker 2>and for perennials like a daily, you know, a slow
<v Speaker 2>release granule is the way to go. It's perfect for them.
<v Speaker 2>A small amount, we said, an eighth of a cup
<v Speaker 2>does it really well. And then here's the key with
<v Speaker 2>day lilies. You know, you water that in, you let
<v Speaker 2>them go, you let them bloom. But this is where
<v Speaker 2>people make the second mistake with dails to get into
<v Speaker 2>bloom the next year is once your plants have bloomed
<v Speaker 2>so many people just leave them on and let them
<v Speaker 2>die off and let them stay all summer. And once
<v Speaker 2>that do they form those seed pods. We've all seen it, right,
<v Speaker 2>they take so much power from your plant plant, the
<v Speaker 2>power that next year or later that summer, you can
<v Speaker 2>get a second bloom. We use a lot of Stella
<v Speaker 2>dolores or doors. Everybody says it a different way for us.
<v Speaker 2>As soon as those blooms start to die off in
<v Speaker 2>I think ours would be middle of June, we take them.
<v Speaker 2>We cut those blooms back, we cut any seed heads
<v Speaker 2>that for them cut back, and without fail, come July
<v Speaker 2>August we get another bloom.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 4>And you know you can definitely fertilize this great to
<v Speaker 4>fertilize first thing in the spring before spring hits, but
<v Speaker 4>you also could do a early summer. What you want
<v Speaker 4>to avoid is doing a late fall fertilizer.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, never never do any type of perennial plant fertilizing
<v Speaker 2>in the fall, because what it does is it encourages
<v Speaker 2>that growth. So like a daily leaf, you did that,
<v Speaker 2>it's it's gonna signal it to I need to grow more.
<v Speaker 2>And that growth is the most susceptible to winter damage
<v Speaker 2>around for so any of your perennials, that's just a
<v Speaker 2>great little rule of thumb to live by. Never fertilize them.
<v Speaker 2>What Mary's talking about with that late summer application, A
<v Speaker 2>lot of people that really want to get that second
<v Speaker 2>bloom when they finish blooming that first time and you
<v Speaker 2>cut them back, a little bit of fertilizer again will
<v Speaker 2>really help them try to try to blame that second.
<v Speaker 3>Time, right right, So you know we're talking about early
<v Speaker 3>spring and early summer.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Absolutely, So hey, listen, this has been great. We're
<v Speaker 2>gonna we're gonna go out for this first podcast of
<v Speaker 2>the new season, the twenty twenty six season. I can't
<v Speaker 2>believe I'm saying that we're gonna drop just like we
<v Speaker 2>used to one every two weeks, and we really look
<v Speaker 2>forward to We got a lot of new subjects and
<v Speaker 2>not of new things to talk about. And again, if
<v Speaker 2>you happen to be live within an hour or two
<v Speaker 2>of us head out this year to the Garden Conference.
<v Speaker 2>It's gonna be a fun time. We're going to do
<v Speaker 2>some speaking in the event center, some live demonstrations in
<v Speaker 2>the garden, weather permitting. We have lunch served. I think
<v Speaker 2>tickets are available on the site ow garden dot com.
<v Speaker 2>It's going to be a fun, fun day, right.
<v Speaker 3>We're gonna give everybody a tour afterwards.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, That's right, So all right, everybody, We're glad
<v Speaker 2>to be back. We hope you enjoyed listening, and for
<v Speaker 2>Marry and Jim's so long everyone, happy gardening.
<v Speaker 6>We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the Simple
<v Speaker 6>Garden podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or most of
<v Speaker 6>your favorite podcast apps. You can also head over to
<v Speaker 6>simplegardenlife dot com where you can listen and read all
<v Speaker 6>of the show notes to every episode.
<v Speaker 4>And if you have any questions, any ideas for show topics,
<v Speaker 4>or if you want to share your favorite garden tip,
<v Speaker 4>email us at the farm at owgarden dot com.
<v Speaker 6>Until next time, Thanks everyone,