Happy Easter!!!

     Today being Easter, I thought I would just post some photos I took over at a house in Lyndhurst, Ohio. For 55 years the Manolio's have put this display together.  Mr. Manolio passed away last year, so his wife and grandkids put this display together this year even featuring a reproduction of Mr. Manolio's face.  Total number of eggs used, 21,630.  They called it Eggshelland and it will be in place until April 5th.  I was thinking to myself......has anyone hybridized daylilies for 50+ years?  I believe Steve Moldovan and one other hybridizer have accomplished that task.  I believe Steve hybridized Irises as well. 

      One other thing I thought I would include, my wife and I adopted a new cat at the local shelter. For now we call her Cinnamon. (Photo at the very bottom) I will continue getting back to daylilies next week.  Happy Easter everyone!

The many faces of GAUDEAMUS!!!

    

GAUDEAMUS (means Let Us Rejoice in Latin)

35-04: (282-02: (125-00: (37-99: ((Vatican City x Red Candy) x Forestlake Raggamuffin) x 149-00:

(Trivia Pursuit x (Vatican City x (Voltaire x Lady Khan))) X 299-01: (Sparkling Champagne x Victorian Lace)

38 plus inch scape - 6 inch diameter - 4 to 5 way branching - 30+ buds - dormant

 

     I had to start this write up by posting the parentage of the daylily Gaudeamus.  It is extensive, isn't it? I also like reading in the Steve Moldovan description (written by Roy Woodhall), "they grabbed a shovel and moved this daylily from the seedling field to one of the main beds immediately, which is rarely done at Moldovan gardens."  I think the first time I noticed Gaudeamus was in 2007 in one of special beds up near the guest house.  Many times the description, "branched like an oak tree" is over used to describe a daylily, but there is no better way to describe Gaudeamus's plant habit.  It was incredible.  All the photos at the top of the page are of Gaudeamus.  The one at the very top is from the Moldovan website.  In the years following the first time I saw it, Roy was nice enough to share some pollen with Gaudeamus with me.  At that time I really didn't have a great amount of toothy things to put it on, so I put it all over Forestlake Ragamuffin and Brother Charles Reckamp's daylily, Charlie.  I will tell you that Gaudeamus seedlings have that wonderful candelabra branching it is so known for, and I'm happy to report that the teeth are passed on easily as well.  If you are planning on buying Gaudeamus, I would strongly recommend you don't put it in a greenhouse. Gaudeamus is a dormant and loves to be planted in the ground.  It seems a little slow to increase, but it is worth the wait.  I believe Roy Woodhall is currently sold out, but I have seen fans for sale on the Lily auction from time to time.  A great Moldovan daylily and I hope to continue to breed with it and show you my results in the coming years.  The seedling pictured at the bottom is a cross of Charlie X Gaudeamus.  By the way, there is snow in the forecast again for Ohio this week.  This March has been a huge disappointment.  Spring has not sprung in my neck of the woods!!!

Steve Moldovan and Roy Woodhall's daylilies.

     It only seemed fitting for me to follow up a blog entry about Curt Hanson's daylilies with one about Steve Moldovan and Roy Woodhall's daylilies.  Before I get started with Steve's and Roy's daylilies, let me say that Curt Hanson's 2013 introductions are up on his website.  Check them out, they are fantastic.

     Before I begin, the photos at the top of the page are of Roy Woodhall in the seedling field that has Steve Moldovan's last seedlings growing.  What a magnificent seedling field it is.  The photo right below it is of Bill Chambers planting a daylily with Dan Robarts and Dan's wife looking on. (Photo courtesy of Dan Robarts, thanks for sharing Dan.) 

     Where do I start with Steve Moldavan and Roy Woodhall's daylilies?  It's where it all started for me.  It's where it all started for many of us.  How many of us who hybridize were just blown away walking around Moldovan gardens for the first time?  Quite a few of us.  So many great memories of talking about daylilies out at the guest house out back....why even this past season there was a group of folks who came out and helped Roy clean up some weeds (I showed up late, but put my weedwhipper to good use after the others left.) and how much fun it was to get to know some new friends like John Hric and Dan Robarts.

Special thanks must go to Wayne Listowski for organizing the get together and helping out Roy with everyday tasks around the garden.  For those of you who didn't have the pleasure of knowing Steve Moldovan, who unfortunately passed away in July of 2006, then the next best thing is listening to Roy Woodhall talk about what Steve tried to teach me and many others about daylily hybridizing.  Steve was big on the daylily plant habit as well as having a nice flower.  Bud count, branching, and the daylily had to be able to thrive without being sprayed with pesticides and pumped up with fertilizers.  The other thing that I remember Steve talking about is whether a daylily could survive in our climate.  I remember him pointing out some southern daylilies that were just too tender to survive, and those would usually get discarded.  There weren't a lot, but there were a few.  Steve would always tell you his opinion of a daylily, he never held back.  I kind of liked his honesty.  It was refreshing. 

     This past summer I enjoyed listening to Roy tell me about how patterns and eyes were interchangeable

  When I thought about hybridizing patterns, I always just thought about crossing a pattern with another pattern, but this made me think twice about which direction I would go in.  To sum it up, I wouldn't be where I am today without the teachings of Roy and Steve.  Next week I'm going to feature one of Steve's cool introductions Gaudeamus and post a few pics of seedlings I have gotten from it.  Hope you enjoyed this weeks pictures.  The seedling photograph at the bottom is one of Steve Moldovan's seedlings from last years photographs. Hope you folks had a nice week. Happy St. Patrick's day!

Curt Hanson's daylilies.

     Well, in last week's post I had featured John Kinnebrew's daylilies and it was brought to my attention that Jamie Gossard will be introducing John's last daylilies.  That's good news.  I look forward to being able to buy some of those great toothy daylilies. 

     So, as we get closer to spring, I have to start focusing on getting the garden ready, but before that takes full focus, I thought I would share some great photos of some of my favorite Curt Hanson daylilies from last season.  Where does one begin when talking about your favorite Curt Hanson daylily, there are so many! I have the good fortune of living about 10 minutes away from Curt, so I get multiple opportunities to photograph his garden and daylilies.  I used to be Curt's neighbor, only living a couple of houses away, but my finances took a hit about 6 years ago and I had to move to my current house with my wife in Mayfield Heights.  I miss living that close to Curt, but you have to roll with the punches in life, and my wife's property still affords me the luxury of growing and hybridizing daylilies.  Life is good!!!

     Let's start with the photos.  At the very top of the page is a photo taken by Wayne Listowski of my friends, Curt Hanson, Dan Robarts, Marty Piconnin, and Roy Woodhall. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Robarts, thanks to Dan for sharing it.) The photo right below it is a field shot of some of Curt's seedlings.

The daylily above was a visitor's favorite and will be introduced this spring.

This daylily is Wikileaks, a 2011 Curt Hanson, introduction. Nice pattern!!!

This daylily above is Van Gogh's Ear, a 2012 introduction. Very unique sculpted form!

This daylily is a personal favorite, called Fun in Acapulco. Flower is 8 to 9" in size.

This daylily is another favorite, Celestial Virgins, which is out of Ruffled Strawberry Parfait.

Curt has some excellent TALL daylilies as well.  This yellow is called the Space Race, and you

can see how tall it is with Curt standing just in front of it.    

     Well, at the very bottom of this page are some of Curt's seedlings he was using for crossing

 last season.  Curt always tries to emphasize to me that it is easy to hybridize a pretty flower, the tough thing is to hybridize a pretty flower, with great plant habit, and excellent foliage.  Curt's daylilies are easy to grow since they have been tested in some really difficult growing conditions and rocky soils.  If you are in the northeastern Ohio area during peak bloom around mid July, you have to stop by Curt's place and check out his garden.  He grows daylilies from all across the country and his gardens and pond are always such a nice place to visit.  I'm pretty sure Curt's 2013 catalogs will be sent out in the next month or so.  Hope you enjoyed the visit to Crintonic Gardens.

    

John Kinnebrew's daylilies.

     Well, I didn't quite know how I would follow up the blog after writing about 3 incredible hybridizers, but then I thought about the fact that John Kinnebrew is giving up his daylily hybridizing and I had to write about my last visit to his garden.  Before I begin let me start by saying the seedling at the very top of the page is a Kinnebrew seedling out of Spacecoast Loose Tooth X Heman.  The photo right below it is of his 2012 introduction, Spacecoast Chomp, Chomp, which is a sibling to the top daylily.  If you are looking for his 2012 introductions, most of them can be found on the Lily auction.

     I think the first year I visited Kinnebrew's daylily garden was May 2009.  Usually when I go to visit Florida, I only have three days to visit because of work obligations and it's hard to see so many nurseries in those three days.  I remember seeing his Alexa Katherine back in the mid 2000's and Jeff Salter told me it was a good parent.  I would see John's daylilies in almost every garden I visited and a lot of people spoke about how nice the Kinnebrew's were.  John was an excellent host taking me around showing all his new daylilies and talking about which ones he was using as parents.  He freely gave out information about which ones he was getting good results from and I really appreciated that.  Most of the other big hybridizers wouldn't tell you which daylilies were good parents and for a newbie, that made it a little more difficult.  One daylily that John said was a good parent was Randy Stephens pictured above this paragraph.  Let me just say this about Randy Stephens...I got to use Randy Stephens this past summer and it has super potent pollen, setting pods on difficult to set pod parents.  I highly recommend it to those of your breeding for teeth.

     The next time I got to visit John Kinnebrew's was in May of 2011.  John showed me his toothy seedlings, which you will see below and WOW!!!! they were really cool.  I couldn't wait to buy them. John was very kind in showing me around his garden again.  It was always a pleasure to talk to him and I'm sure the daylily community would say the same thing.  When I heard he was going out of business it saddened me.  I know our economy isn't what it was in the past and making a living with daylilies is more difficult than ever.  My friends in the area who are hybridizers are talking about taking up jobs since the daylily sales have declined.  To me John Kinnebrew is such a talented hybridizer that I hope he decides to get back into it.
I have heard through the grapevine (but this is not confirmed) that some other hybridizers are buying some of his remaining seedlings.  Lucky folks.  You will see below that his daylily seedlings were just amazing.