This is the time of year that I start harvesting daylily seeds for spring planting. This is how I create new cultivars, and you can too. Look for pods that are turning or have turned brown. Seeds should be black in color.
I just put the whole pod in a paper bag for later “processing”
More on that in the future.
These seeds are immature and so won’t be ready for harvesting. I’ll sometimes break a top bit of the seedpod to look at the seeds. If not ripe i’ll leave them to ripen.
One can also sometimes tell if the seedpods are ripe by squeezing them. The pods will give and act like they want to split. It isn’t always the case and takes a bit to figure out, but if works well for many.
I’m sometimes asked about spent flower stems (scapes). I rarely pull them as there are thousands. But anytime the flowers are done blooming, the scapes can be removed. Eventually the scapes die all the way down to the daylily crown and can be pulled out by hand.
Another interesting fall occurance are proliferations. They are like the “babies” produced the the houseplant “Spiderplant”. They can be removed and easlily rooted in water or damp sand. When I do that, I leave a little bit of the stem to hold the proliferation at the correct level in the water. They will quickly develop roots.
The difficulty is that the roots aren’t always sufficient to ensure survival over the winter (at least here in Vermont).
So they will need some extra attention to survive. I’d grow them inside for as long as possible and then transtion them into soil in a protected place like your garage.
Dante has been enjoying the waning days of summer and the beginning of Autumn with his usual aplomb.
