Breaking up the lillies

So in 2008 Liz and I went to a "plant sale" out in the boonies off Liberty Road in Sweet Home. The couple that were selling the plants were moving and the new owners did not want their nursery-sized cache of potted and in-ground plants. They were going for next to nothing and we scooped up as much as we could. We got all kind of plants: hostas, Shasta Daisies, a Chinese Maple (which didn't make it), Calla Lillies, irises and fire-poker plants to name a few. We also scored "a few" daylillies. Between the trip with Liz and the next day's trip with Josh, I got over 30 pots of Daylillies. All had 3+ plants in them and they came in a variety of colors.

This is one of the doubles that I have a ton of. This past summer I started taking pictures of the flowers as they bloomed and assigning a number to each type. I have 15 labeled with numbers so far - there are so many types of Daylillies that it is impossible to identify them now, but since all I care about right now is putting the colors together in the garden, I could care less about what their names are. Only about half bloomed last year so half of them are unlabeled to date. A week ago I set out to divide my lillies, or at least the ones that needed it the most to encourage the blooms and to increase the number of plants I got out of the season.

I divided all the #10, there were 6 pots and this is what each of them looked like when I popped them out of the pots. We have been collecting recycling bins from our renter neighbors when they move out--our garbage company doesn't use them any more and when people move out of their houses, they leave their bins on the sidewalk. We stash them in the garage and have found they make excellent planters! So, I bought five bags of soil and went to town with the #10 lillies. Out of the six pots I got nearly 150 plants! They haven't been fertilized yet, the weather hasn't really calmed down enough for me to be comfortable to fertilize. They'll take off when I fertilize them and I don't want the frost or snow to know them back. Maybe this weekend if it drys out - no use in fertilizing with liquid fertilizer if it is raining all the time, the only thing that will get fertilized will be the lawn! Here is a photo of the #10 lillies in their new "pots" and some other great blooms I have.