Growing Daylilies from Seed

[Guff]

50's at night. Put Linda Beck pollen on this flower, not sure if there is enough time to get mature seeds.

[Guff]

Daylilies along road.

[Maggi Young]

Daylilies along road.

My! They do make a lovely display!

[Jeffnz]

En masse is the best display, numerous white tags so future day lilies?

[Guff]

Maggi, Jeff thanks.

Ivory soap in tea bags, to keep the deer from eating the buds. They were eating the buds like crazy every night, then stopped once soap was placed.

[Maggi Young]

Maggi, Jeff thanks.

Ivory soap in tea bags, to keep the deer from eating the buds. They were eating the buds like crazy every night, then stopped once soap was placed.

What a clever ruse to protect the buds - most impressed with that!

[Guff]

It works great Maggi. Strung up a string line around my daylilies that I'm hybridizing with, and they haven't touched the flowers/seed pods. Placed tea bags with bar soap 3 foot apart. Might try it this Spring to protect my crocus on the grass bank.


Seedling keeps getting better and better. This flower was rained on all morning, and looks perfect.

[Maggi Young]

I see that Ivory Soap is available from Ebay or Amazon  - but do you know if other soaps work as well?

[Guff]

Guess I didn't use Ivory, it's Zest that I used. Irish Spring  soap will probably work as well.

[Guff]

from google.

What is the best soap to keep deer away?
Irish Spring soap
“Use bars of Irish Spring soap for your deer problem and they'll go away,” Mrs. Poweska advised. “Just use a grater and shave the bars of soap into slivers to scatter about your garden, flowerbeds or the stems of the hostas. The deer will no longer approach because the soap has such a strong scent.Jul 26, 2019

I did try this, spreading on the ground, doesn't work for plants up high like daylilies. Needs to be around the same height as the buds so the deer smell it.

[Jeffnz]

The chemist in me was intrigued by what colud be in the soap that wolud deter deer from eating in the vicinity.
Ingredients: soap and/or Sodium Palmate, Sodium Cocoate and/or Sodium Palm Kernelate), Water, Glycerin (Skin Conditioner), Hydrogenated Tallow Acid, Coconut Acid, Fragrance, Sodium Chloride, Pentasodium Pentetate, Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate, Titanium Dioxide, D&C Green No.
The makers harvest clover and use peat to give the characteristic odour to the soap. Looking at the list of ingredients I casn obly think that the odour/frangrancre is the most lijk;ley deterent.

[MarcR]

Jeff,

My last Chemistry class is about 40 years old by now; but, I believe, that Hydroxyhydrocinnamate has Cyanide or Cyanamide radicle. While probably not toxic in that form, it might project an aura of toxicity.

[Jeffnz]

Hi Marc
Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate is an antioxidant molecule used in small amounts (less than 0.8%) to help products stay nice longer. More specifically, it is great at preventing discoloration or other types of oxidative degradation. It is a trendy alternative to often bad-mouthed synthetic antioxidant and stabilizer, BHT.
No cyanide involved in the chemical, used in many human products as alternative to methyisothiazolones which are now well established as contact allergens.

[MarcR]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the correction.  I thought I saw a similarity to references to the CN radicle in the cina of Hydroxyhydrocinnamate.  I took 3 lower division classes in Chemistry, more than 40 years ago, in persuit of my multiple subject teaching credential.

[Jeffnz]

Marc
I was not meaning to be corrective, only definitive. It is coming up 50 years sincer I graduated with my PhD in chemistry. The intervening years has seen me forget my than I learned, but the basics of chemistry have not dramatically changed in that time.