Transplanting Stella D’Oro Daylilies

To transplant Stella D’Oro daylilies is super simple, in this post I’ll show you just how easy it is.

A few weeks ago I shared that now as the whole house renovation dust has settled, I had time and energy to focus on the gardens and landscaping… (you can read that post here) then it snowed LOL! That was a momentary set-back… Spring has finally sprung and the garden planning has begun! YAY!!  My goal on this house is to keep it as maintenance friendly as possible without compromising beauty. That’s a tricky combo for me.

Tackling one garden landscape area at a time, I’m starting on the east side of the house. The sidewalk creates a pretty half circle shaped garden bed. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason in the few plants that were growing in it, so I’ve decided to completely clear it out and start with a fresh design.

However, there were a few plants growing in it that I would like to keep, just in another setting, like the Stella D’Oro daylilies.

A few facts about Stella D’Oro daylilies:

If you’re not familiar with that variety of daylily, they’re great plants. They aren’t invasive, like the old classic orange flowered variety of daylily. Stellas grow in a nice clump, about 12″ high, and are easy to transplant. They also bloom for most of the summer. Each flower only lasts a day, but they keep sending new blooms. They are hardy too, zone 3-9. Stellas like full sun, but I’ve had good success with them in a little partial sun too.

I found a few clumps of them growing in the existing spot, no not the obvious clumps of green in the pic above, those are actually tulips. The daylilies are still much smaller, just peeking their green foliage above ground level.

For transplanting, I love to use my garden spade fork. I actually found it at an estate sale probably 30 years ago and love its sturdiness! It has a wood handle that doesn’t feel spongy like some of the fiberglass handled models can feel. I primarily use mine for transplanting so it gets a work out!

Transplanting perennials is fairly straight-forward. I go around the plant, pushing in the fork and gently lifting a little each time. Then after getting all 4 sides of the plant, it typically lifts out pretty well.

The nice thing about a garden spade fork for transplanting is it won’t chop off the roots like a spade shove would. It acts more like fingers in the soil lifting the root mass out of the soil.

The daylily clumps were pretty large so I wanted to split them up to replant. To do that, I just simply push the fork right into the spot I want to split it off and shove it all the way through.

You can’t be shy about this… You may bruise a couple of the leaves, or break off a few of the root pieces, but it’ll do fine. The optimal time of the season to do this is in the spring, when the leaves are small still and the weather is cooler. Hot weather adds more stress on the plant to recoup after replanting.

Next is to prep the spot where the lily is going to be planted:

On the east side of the house, flanking the outsides of the doors, the areas by the downspouts, needed some plants. So to create symmetry, and to camouflage the downspouts a bit, I decided that’d be a great spot for these faithful little bloomers. This will be partial sun… it gets good morning sun, but by late afternoon it is shaded. I think they’ll still do great here.

As I was digging the holes for the plants to go in, I saved the soil I was removing, and put it in the wagon. That way, what I didn’t use to backfill the plant with, I’d use to fill the hole where I removed the plant from. It’s nice to have the soil in an easily movable container like this dumping wagon. A wheelbarrow would work too, but this wagon is easier for me to work with. I’ve tipped a wheelbarrow a few times and that’s not a fun experience. I love how sturdy this wagon is for me to use. I’ve used it for several years, to haul some pretty heavy loads up and down hills, and it’s still going strong.

(Here’s a shopping link for a Gorilla dumping wagon like mine.)

Once the hole is dug, it’s just a matter of plopping the plant in it and filling in some dirt around the edges of the roots. Then give it a drink, and watch the magic!

They don’t look like much, but after a few more warm days, they’ll grow and be blooming in no time.

Here they are 3 days later:

At our old, old house, (that’s a few houses ago…) I had planted some Stella D’Oro daylilies on the front sidewalk garden:

That’s a picture of them several years after I planted them. They stayed in lovely golden clumps blooming for most of the summer.

Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate you reading along.

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