Based in Duluth, Minnesota just off the shores of Lake Superior, I'm a hosta nut at heart that just ran out of shade, but I still have "lawn" that can be converted into something better. My now 13-year-old son Ethan (shown above, hybridizing summer of '22) and I (Matt) run Duluth Hosta, where we sell hosta seeds in the winter months. That, along with my former side business as an orchid hybridizer, collided with Daylilies (with the help and encouragement of a few hosta friends who are also Hemerocallis hybridizers), and so now Ethan and I have added daylily seed sales to our fall & winter offerings.

Please Read This Entire Page Fully! If you are not 100% comfortable with everything outlined below, please do not bid or buy. Your purchase is an acceptance of our terms!

Payment: PayPal is our standard method of payment. You do not need to have a PayPal account to use your credit card to pay via PayPal. If you require a different payment option, please contact us first before bidding or buying. We will gladly allow you to combine wins over multiple weeks or months, provided you have been in contact with us to let us know you're still watching/bidding/shopping. We prefer that you do not make many small payments (we incur repeat transaction fees if you do that), but pay only once, where possible. At a minimum, outstanding balances should be paid once every 30 days. Unless there has been communication or discussion, bidders and buyers are requested to settle their balances within 7 days of auction's close.

We are required to collect sales tax from Minnesota residents. We are a private hobby-scale garden; we are not a state-licensed nursery. Duluth Daylily operates under the umbrella corporation, MiniWaters LLC.

Know your state & local laws, and do not bid or buy if your local laws ban the importation of daylily (Hemerocallis) seed or plants. We will not be held responsible for shipments that violate your local laws, and will not refund any shipment that is refused, delayed, seized, or destroyed by a governmental agency.

We are only shipping daylily or hosta seeds to the US or Canada at this time. Due to state regulations, we are unable to ship daylily seed to Arizona.

Canadian buyers; based on the 2021-2022 season, importing seeds from the US into Canada is likely becoming slower & riskier as the years have gone by, so I personally don't encourage your purchase but will work with you if you choose to take on that risk. We had good success shipping seeds to Canada via USPS with full and proper customs disclosures, arriving significantly faster than any USPS shipment we've ever done.

We are only shipping plants to the US at this time. Due to state regulations, we cannot ship daylily seedlings and plants to several U.S. states including WA, OR, CA, NM, NV, and AZ. You can check your state regulations at https://www.nationalplantboard.org/state-law--regulation-summaries.html

We will NOT ship anything outside of the US & Canada at this time, so please do not ask. We will not ship seeds or plants in a manner that obscures the necessary disclosure; all seeds will be properly noted as such and labeled accordingly. 

We cannot furnish phytosanitary certificates at this time; they are extremely cost- and time-prohibitive here in the State of MN (e.g. up to roughly $80 per certificate, plus at least an hour of our time). If you are in a location that would require a phytosanitary certificate to receive daylily seeds, please do not bid or buy!

RUST NOTE: Despite being a northern grower (3b to 4b here), several well-known vendors in the south and west sent us plants infected with rust during the spring and summer of 2022, and it spread among some of our other plants too. To avoid rust arriving, I'm now only accepting new plants from rust-free locations in the spring, reserving rust-prone locations for fall arrivals only. Since fall shipments may arrive while I'm selling plants and seeds, I cannot promise 100% no rust, although it unlikely. I've not been able to find any reliable information on whether rust can be spread through seed purchases, but if this remotely concerns you at all, please take prophylactic measures at your own discretion, or do not bid or buy!

All photos are of our own plants unless otherwise noted. 

Please message me with any questions before bidding or buying!

The 2023 season was our first season selling daylily seedlings (and possibly some very limited plant offerings) on the auction. All plants are sold as-is, and we will be very clear in terms of what you can expect, particularly in terms of plant size. We do not accept returns.

Primarily, our focus is to offer unbloomed, first-year seedlings. Some are from seeds purchased here by third-party breeders, while others originate from seeds hybridized here at Duluth Daylily. Our unbloomed seedlings are well under a year old unless otherwise stated, and may even be just 2-3 months from emerging. They are TINY by comparison to mature plant, or even unbloomed seedlings that are a couple of years old. These seedlings are going to be at least 2-3 years from first bloom in most cases. Consider them the equivalent of "plugs" or "liners" in this regard. They will come with foliage trimmed back to roughly 1-inch but still planted in their 3-oz, 2-inch white pots, with the seedling code on the side. These seedlings may or may not be hardy in your area. They may fail to thrive in your growing conditions. We have done the hard work of tracking and germinating and initially growing out these seedlings to a point at which they can be transplanted and grown. All seedlings will be shipped still potted, with foliage trimmed.

The 2023 season is our second season selling seed as Duluth Daylily. All seeds are sold as-is. We will stand behind the parentage (the seeds came from the plants we say they came from, but you’ll still have to take us at our word as there’s really no way for us to prove it) and the quantity listed (there will be that many, or maybe a few extras, and on this, you can verify the count).

We cannot make any promises and offer no warranty nor guarantee regarding viability, germination, or the quantity/quality of the seedlings you wind up with from our seeds. Like hosta seeds, I view my own purchases of seeds as a gamble, so I encourage all customers to spend only money they can comfortably part with and completely lose.

I conducted extensive experiments on daylily seed growing during the winter of 2021-2022, and had surprising findings. Of note:

• While the 'Lily Auction User Agreement' sets the default germination rates of 80% or higher, as the acceptable range of germination, the seller may disclose their own standard which always overrides the Lily Auction default. However, looking at overall cumulative AVERAGE germination for every seller I purchased from, I had sellers range from 0% to 100% germination on their seeds. These extremes always represented a small amount of seed from a vendor...e.g. one or two packets. When looking at many of the most respected sellers here, where I purchased MANY seeds, the cumulative overall average germination rates went from 39% to 86%. Only ONE vendor in this group was above the proposed 80% threshold. In short, nearly all sellers' seeds fell short of the proposed rate. Did I gripe? No, because I know there are MANY factors outside of the sellers' control. The only time I requested any sort of refund was for seeds that were moldy or soft upon arrival.
• I found that ANY pre-germination treatments such as soaks or cold-moist stratification lowered germination rates, despite what many resources suggest. Some recommended pre-treatments even may have even outright killed seeds. I universally had the best results when planting seeds straight out of refrigeration. Therefore, based on stringently collected data, I do not recommend any special seed pre-treatment to "awaken" your seeds.
• I also found that the vast majority of seeds germinate in the first month, and two months post-planting, no further germination was likely. I actually went through every pot where germination had failed, and most of the time, I found a rotted-out husk, or even nothing at all. On the rare times when I found a hard seed, I refrigerated the seed & its small pot for 30 days, and then returned the pots to the growing trays for another attempt at germination. Only a very small fraction (perhaps 5-10%) germinated after this "restratification" period. Given these results, I think it's best to only put a lot of effort like this into very special seeds, where every last chance at germination is desired. 
• Another reality of germination rates is a correlation with specific grexes and/or parental plants. Some pollen/pod parents seemed to produce seeds that, while appearing to be good, clearly were not. Some past third-party research suggests that as many as 30% of daylily seeds may not have an embryo inside to begin with, even with great seeds. So it could well be that a 70% viability rate is normal for the best seed. Creating new grexes absolutely involves inherent unknowns and risks, so even with the best-looking seeds, I believe it's impossible to predict the results unless it's something that has been tried many times before. If the cross repeatedly failed to produce viable seedlings, at that point, stop making the cross, and move on to something else!
• Shipping also involves risk, particularly with any perishable or sensitive item. Perfectly acceptable seeds could leave here and, along the way, be rendered non-viable. 
• As I've learned through selling hosta seed, how a grower works with seed is 100% outside of our control. We've sent seeds to close friends who have failed to grow anything, while seeds from the exact same lot are germinated and grown successfully by many others. It could very well be that the reported germination rates above were impacted by my own inexperience, and perhaps in future years of growing my own success with third-party seed could improve.

Given these many realities, it bears repeating, all seeds are sold as-is, and we do not accept returns. I cannot emphasize it enough - not every seed is going to germinate; this doesn't mean that you didn't get good seeds.

Viability is a total uncertainty and is not something that can be promised, in my opinion. You are not simply paying for seeds, but for all the time and effort we put into carefully pollinating, tracking, harvesting, testing, packaging, storing, rechecking before departure, and shipping the seeds to you. This is a partnership, where the seed buyer is receiving the benefit of all our work and effort, plus not having to own the plants themselves. When you buy seeds from us, you're buying into that partnership.

As a gardener or grower, when you're buying seeds of things like daylilies and hostas you are investing in a potential future, not a guaranteed reality. I think most people here already know, but daylilies do not come "true to seed" (unless we're talking about matings within a species). As it pertains to daylilies, the outcome in terms of plant qualities and bloom traits are entirely unique and very unpredictable; it's a genetic melting point and gamble, and each seedling is unique, just like a child.

I absolutely DO want to know how your seeds perform; my son and I want to take this into account when planning crosses for future seasons. If we find that there was simply a problematic grex based on our customers' cumulative feedback, we may opt to unilaterally send refunds or replacements to people who got them at our discretion. So, your feedback is vital. Ask our hosta customers; we've been treating them fairly for years now.

Our promise is that we will do our very best. We will not send out seeds we are not comfortable with. We will work with you if there is a problem, within reason, particularly for the obvious issues that can arise through no one's fault (lost packages, damaged seeds despite our ample packing, oversights on our part, those sorts of things). Please examine your seeds upon arrival, and if there are any smashed seeds or moldy seeds (there shouldn't be!), send photos showing the seeds still in the packaging and a message within 24 hours of arrival. In these sorts of situations, we will refund the purchase price of the seeds without hesitation.

We do not refund shipping costs unless they are refunded to us by the carrier; shipping is a service you pay for to move what we have to you, not part of the product we are selling.

If there is anything that you feel is a problem with what you receive from us, please message us FIRST and in a timely manner, within 24 hours of seed arrival. We are reasonable people, but we will not abide scammers (who, thankfully, are relatively rare).