Dividing Daylilies

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

44.5°,  windless, sky full of stars, waning gibbous moon at 69%, quiet. Just back in with Karl the Wonder Dog. It's too early to be awake but I heard something at the back door and have been up ever since. The bears are arriving too often to eat the ripening black berries outside my office window and one of them has a bad habit of coming to the door. My guess is that he has been successful at some other house on his tour. We have taken to locking the storm door at night but this added challenge apparently is irritating the visitor a bit.

Daylilies--we love 'em-- but there comes a time when they need dividing. Here at the flower farm our motivation is to constantly have the right number for sales and that means dividing some both spring and fall. As visitor numbers decrease now compared to when the daylilies are peaking, it gives us time to begin to dig and divide. Some folks are hesitant to do this but if your clumps  are overgrowing your original garden design or if you notice a decrease in the number of scapes per plant or if there are almost no scapes in the middle of your clumps,  then it's time to thinking about dividing them.

The whole digging and dividing thing is real work so consider some stretching first to limber up before the digging, bending and lifting begin. We use shovels or spade forks and often add a 6 foot pry bar to the tool mix. I hear there is a new daylily separator tool on the market that works quite well. Here at the flower farm we have clay soil in many places and I have been reluctant to spend the money to try the tool knowing how difficult the clay is to dig. 

 I like to divide daylilies after a good rain when the soil is looser and the process goes quicker. I dig 8"-10" away from the base of the plant, circling the entire plant before using the shovel or fork to pry the plant out. If it is a large clump, I resort to a pry bar as the opportunity for more leverage makes the task easier.

Once the clump is out of the ground, I use a garden hose and high pressure to wash it clean of dirt. Then I move it to a cutting table. We do hundreds and hundreds of divisions so we consider ergonomics and have purchased a cutting table that has a sink and is at our standing height. Friend Gail T found an old metal wash sink from a farm milk house and aside from a need for a little more leg height and a cutting board on one end, that works great and can handle more daylilies in the sink sections. I stress ergonomics because I have never known a gardener who didn't get older. 

Last week I replaced all my cutting knives as our dig and divide season is starting. I go to Wally World and buy a bunch of their large, serrated meat knives at 88 cents each. Yes, it is a disposable world, but these work well for a season, rust over time, but hold the edge, unlike the regular cutting knives which dull in minutes.

The size of the divisions depends upon what you're looking for. A large clump that measures 30" in diameter can be split in half with one piece returned to its orginal location and the other half moved to a different garden, shared with a friend or divided into pieces. I try to make each division three fans whether it's going back into the garden to grow again or if the divisions are going into pots for sale. If I happen to have a daylily that is in short supply and difficult to find on the market, I might divide down to single fans and line them out in the garden in a trench well amended with compost and fertilizers to bring the production up as quickly as possible. Daylilies are like people--they grow up differently--and until you learn their nature, you don't know how long it will take for your new divisions to reach saleable size if you start with single fans. 

Here is a picture of three large divisions I made from a three year old clump of Alabama Jubilee. Any one of these will probably produce 4-6 scapes next season and in three-four years will be bushel basket size. Give it a try yourself!

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where daybreak is still some time away as the days of me being in the garden by 4:30 have passed until next May. Happy gardening!!

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook writing as George Africa and on a Like Page Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens. 
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm
Writing on many social media garden sites too

Always here to help you grow your green thumb!

Hostas: Slugs and Snails

 Monday, June 27, 2016

A clear morning here on the mountain as I pack the truck to head to the flower farm for the day. Crows are talking loudly at the compost pile, fighting over parings from a cantaloupe. The sky is clear, the morning without wind. This is the best part of today because the weather folks tell us to expect high humidity and temperatures in the 90s later on. 

The dry temperature has brought on weevils in the hostas. These tiny black and brown insects make the bazillion little holes that bother us to see in some hosta leaves. There's not much we can do about them save for chemical treatments which most of us avoid.

This time of year we typically see increasing numbers of slugs and snails but the numbers have been down because it has been so dry. This afternoon we are to expect thunderstorms and tomorrow heavy rains are supposed to approach. With these changes, we may see more slugs and snails in the hosta plants.

Many years ago I read some research from Hawaii where the Department of Agriculture was on a mission to quiet a noisy tree frog that disrupted tourists sleep patterns. One of the outcomes of the research was finding that caffeine kills slugs and snails and that hosta growers could use coffee to not only improve the organic content of their garden soils but eliminate pesky slugs that added unsightly holes to hosta leaves. As soon as I read the research I told all my hosta friends and I also started taking the coffee grounds directly to hosta gardens instead of the compost pile. I'll always remember starting with the hosta Invincible because its thin, shiny green leaves always seemed to be a magnet for slugs. The great news was that it worked!

So if you drink coffee or know friends or shop owners who will part with coffee grounds, move them to your hostas--the grounds, not the friends. Encircle each plant and smile for a change. Hostas without holes in July and August are just plain nice!!

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the cool morning is nice but I have to get to work in the valley. Come visit us!

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa, a FB page with lots of flower pictures.
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm
Writing on various gardening-related sites

And always here to help you grow your green thumb!

Putting Dill To Another Use

 Monday, June 13, 2016

A friend suggested I remind gardeners again about the benefit of planting dill or fennel in your gardens even if you don't' care for the two plants or use them in your cooking. Dill and fennel provide housing for hover flies, the tiny flying insects that sometimes are misrepresented as a "baby bumblebee" . Hover flies eat aphids and don't discriminate as to which type they eat. As such, a good "crop"

of hover flies can help prevent the spread of diseases to your flowers and vegetables by eating the vectors themselves. Dill is also a natural egg laying site for tiger swallowtail butterflies so there is yet another advantage to having dill around. 

Here are a couple pictures of the insects, first on a cosmos and then on a daylily. Give it some thought. A package of dill seed is only$1-$2 and sure is worth the benefit.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where here at almost 9 PM the rain has just stopped again. It looks like a good stretch of warm, clear weather starts tomorrow morning. If you're out and about, stop by the flower farm for a visit!

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook as George Africa and also as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm

Always here to help you grow your green thumb!

The Importance of Good Soil

Monday, June 13, 2016

A damp, cold, blustery day here on the mountain above Peacham Pond this morning. 44.3° with a varying, three to five mph wind. Karl the Wonder Dog has been out for two walks but each time as the rain increased,  he ran for the house. He doesn't know that we really need the rain but he does know that he likes the warmth of the wood stove that has been fired up since last night.

We have been busy at the flower farm since our Mother's Day opening and have had a very encouraging number of visits, customers and also web based plant orders from across the US. We have always encouraged people to stop by with gardening questions even if they aren't in the market yet for plants. This gives people the opportunity to see who we are and how devoted we are to growing good plants.

Yesterday afternoon during a very brief break in the rain, I started to weed out the new lilac garden alongside Route 2, down by the hosta display garden. As I kneeled on the slope, my backside getting wet at times, it came to me that I should remind folks to think about their soil more than they probably do. The soil I was working was extremely acidic soil, full of a variety of weeds but still growing very nice two year to four-year-old lilacs because I had amended the planting holes well. The surrounding soil is a disgrace to a good gardener, however, and clearly needs some  help. Just the same it serves as an example of the importance of  good soil.

I once worked with a young man who was in the business of planting food crops for hunters interested in "growing" a larger deer crop, bear and turkeys on their own land. He taught me to notice the weeds that were growing in my soils and said that from there I could adjust the soil accordingly. His comment was that if I could balance the soil better, many of the nuisance weeds would disappear and the plants I wanted to grow would do much better. He was correct.

There are a couple of good books on the market that list the weeds of New England and the soil types they enjoy. There are probably similar books that will help you regardless of where you read this blog from. For me, maple leaves are the chief amendment because I know they contribute a great deal to improving my soil and I also have an abundant supply of them each fall. I also buy several tons of Foster Brothers Composted Cow Manure each year because it helps with my plants and is weed-free. I do not broadcast it within 

my gardens but instead use it within rows or under each new plant. This helps the plants more directly and short term is a little less expensive. Since Gail and I started Vermont Flower Farm on Route 2, we have literally added tractor trailer loads of manure, leaves and various other organic materials to our garden beds. Our site was actually the bottom of the Winooski Ocean 15,000 years ago so it's a soil that needs a great deal of "rebalancing". We have a long way to go and perhaps you do too but develop a plan like we have and continuously try to improve your soil. It makes a difference!

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the rain has started again. I'm headed to the flower farm in minutes and will be there until noon when Gail takes over and I head for an appointment. If you have any gardening questions, let us know.  Sharing good information about gardening is a passion with us!

George Africa

The Vermont Gardener

Vermont Flower Farm

On Facebook as George Africa and also as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens

On Twitter as vtflowerfarm

Writing on various gardening-related social media formats

And always here to help you grow your green thumb!