Daylillies and weeds

Will grassy weeds hurt daylillies? There is so many weeds growing with the daylillies that it will be impossible to pull these by hand. Could everything (including daylilly foliage) be cut to the ground in the fall without harming the daylillies?
thanks.

Hi daisy, the best thing to do with day lilies is to let the foliage die down on it's own in fall, when it goes yellow or dried brown, then you just tug this away from the plants to tidy it up, this helps to feed the tubers again for next season, Day Lilies do need split up from time to time otherwise the clumps get too large and the flowers are not so good and strong, so if you have real trouble with weed grass growing among them, then I would suggest you get your garden fork out and dig them up, be careful not to put the fork in too close to the clump or you could stab the tuber with your fork, once you have dug the clumps up, shake off as much soil as you can, even plop them into a bucket of warm water to remove more soil, then untangle the weed grass roots to remove it, it sounds hard, but it is quite therapeutic, do it on a day when your not under preasure to do too many gardening tasks, then separate the clumps of Lilies, give the new planting hole a good dig over and add some manure/compost to the planting hole, set the separated tubers back into the soil and gently firm the soil around them, water well as they have been out of the ground, and remember to water them often till they start to grow again, the best time to do this job is when there is foliage either ready to die off or new foliage has started to grow, this helps you to gently tug them loose from the soil, they will reward you for this treatment. good luck. WeeNel.

Thanks so much for your advice! I need all the help I can get.

No problems, glad it helped you out, will always be glad to help if needed as will all the other folks here on the forum, we all need answers at some point or other, even just a bit of praise goes some way. happy gardening , Weenel.

OMG! I once got a lot of free daylilies from a collector and there was as much of that tall field grass betwen the tubers as there was daylily foliage! I tried to pull it out for two years, but I eventauly had to bite the bullet, as WeeNel says, and dug up every clump and painstakingly pulled the grass from between the tubers! I did it at the end of August because that's what I was told was the best time. It was a massive job, but the flowers were well worth it (He was a collector, par excellance!)

Suzy

This message was edited Apr 7, 2008 11:19 PM

I guess that is what I will need to do this August. I dread that chore!!

You can do this task early spring OR end of season, so long as you have enough green to distinguished between the foliage of the day lilies and the grass, I would do it now IF the soil is workable, then add a good handful of Blood/fish/bone meal to the planting hole as you replant, this will set them up for flowering this year and you dont have to do all right now, some can be done end of season, just dont let the grass set seed or it will send the seeds back to the lilies you have already cleaned of weds, Good luck, WeeNel.