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| Chimera Delight (Ron Reimer 22) |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 93-15 |
Ever since I have become a member of Facebook, it has opened my eyes to so many great daylily programs across the country. For the past 4 years I have been a big fan or Ron Reimer's diploid program. Ron lives in Russellville, Arkansas. He's been hybridizing for 30 years, so I am excited for him to be the first interview of the season. With nothing further here is Ron's interview:
INTRO WRITTEN BY RON REIMER
My career in horticulture started in the San Francisco Bay area. I was born in Oakland, California, lived in Berkeley, and came into the world late in my parent's lives. They had a mature garden, and I preferred to be working in their garden more than anywhere else. Located nearby were two hybridizers of bearded iris and a commercial orchid company. I visited all three locations regularly and traded weeding labor for orchid plants. Orchids were extremely exotic back when I was a kid, and were my favorite flower of all until I moved to Arkansas. When I was 15, my folks moved to Santa Barbara, California; I was in heaven in the midst of all the tropical plants there with their exotic fragrances. After graduating high school, I attended Cal Poly as a horticulture major and got my landscape contracting license at age 21. I have been in the landscape business ever since. I built my first greenhouse and started collecting and hybridizing orchids, which I did until I moved, at age 36, to Arkansas. The cost of housing orchids in Arkansas was prohibitive (both heating and cooling) so I left my collection of orchids with the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden and was never able to resume my orchid hybridizing after that. For many years in Arkansas, I hybridized daffodils, apricots, azaleas, and crape myrtles, as I have always liked developing new fruit and flowers. That all changed when I was introduced to daylilies.
While in Arkansas, I found a photo of Archangel daylily in Gilbert H. Wild's catalog, made a few purchases from them like so many others, and also found Bill Munson's daylilies. I purchased a few daylilies from Wild's and more from Munson; that started me on the path of a tetraploid hybridizing program. After that, I branched out and purchased tetraploids from many hybridizers. In 2002, rust came to Arkansas and hit the tetraploids hard. Some of the diploids proved to be more resistant and more diploid genetic material survived the culling of rust-prone plants, so that redirected my interest more toward the diploids. As I focused on improving my diploid seedlings, their performance surpassed that of the tetraploids, so I abandoned tetraploid hybridizing entirely. For 15 years, I hybridized with my own seedlings exclusively. I line-bred in several color categories. The term line-breeding generally describes the process of crossing two parent plants to combine their traits; the seedling plants showing the most desirable traits are then crossed and re-crossed to emphasize those desired traits. Plants showing undesirable traits are excluded from the process. I use the term loosely as I occasionally cross other seedlings from my program with the line-bred seedlings. I generally refrain from introducing cultivars purchased from outside sources. I developed my red line using rose, purple, and gold cultivars, and I developed my purple line from purple and rose colors. My yellow line was originally from just two cultivars, one from Jack Carpenter and one from Pauline Henry. Both the purple and red lines have never been crossed with purchased daylilies. My yellow line remained my own line-bred line until I purchased patterned daylilies later from Jack Carpenter.
I am married to Nora Reimer (married 41 years) who is my right-hand person. She takes care of the correspondence, organizes photographs, and maintains the website. I have a son, Tony (age 50) from a prior marriage; he is a pilot with Southwest Airlines but is not a gardener, as he is busy being a world traveler.
AND NOW MY INTERVIEW WITH RON:
1. How did you first get interested in daylilies?
Ron: I saw a Gilbert H. Wild advertisement for Archangel daylily; then I discovered Munson's daylilies and I bought his book.
2. Which hybridizer introduced you to daylilies and hybridizing?
Ron: In 1989 I got my first issue of the AHS Daylily Journal and read the articles from the contributors back then.
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| Ron Reimer with his intro, Orange Titan |
3. What were your first goals in daylily hybridizing?
Ron: Large size, flat flowers that open flat from the throat. Bright colors, and the ability to thrive in a hot inhospitable summer weather with bitter cold winters with little protection. Later, rust resistance became a priority.
4. What were some of the challenges you have faced with your daylily hybridizing?
Ron: Critters, drought, extreme weather, rust damage at first, now not so much.
5. How many seedlings do you grow each year?
Ron: 8000 to 15,000.
6. What are some of your favorite daylily introductions from other hybridizers?
Ron: Merle Kent Memorial (Jack Carpenter) is the backbone of my line as shown by the blunt sepals and flat form.
7. What are some of your favorite daylily introductions?
Ron: Red Dynamo, Orange Titan, Firecracker Orange, Goldilocks Galaxy, and Galaxy Dance.
8. What are some of your favorite daylily gardens to visit?
Ron: I live very far from other daylily growers and don't get out much. I have enjoyed the daylily garden videos posted online and I always look for yours. (Thanks Ron!)
9. What are some of your favorite memories involved with daylilies over the years?
Ron: The excitement of seeing new breakthroughs each spring is the best part of this endeavor for me. The rest of it is just grueling work. The futures that we have seen recently will the the outcome of thirty years of hybridizing work. At 82, I am expecting to see my final crosses when I am 85; I will probably cut back on variety and focus on red and purple patterns and blue eyes.
NOW HERE ARE SOME OF RON'S FABULOUS SEEDLINGS:
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| Ron Reimer seedling 67-20 |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 26-16 |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 54-18 |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 124-16g |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 73-18p |
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| Ron Reimer seedling |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 116-19 |
| Ron Reimer seedling 121-15 |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 61-19s |
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| Ron Reimer seedling |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 49-20 |
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| Ron Reimer seedling 87-19 |
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| Flirting with Blue (Ron Reimer) |
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| Star King (Ron Reimer) |
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| Goldilocks Galaxy (Ron Reimer) |
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| Shaggy Pumpkin (Ron Reimer) |
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| Firecracker Orange (Ron Reimer) |
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| Red Dynamo (Ron Reimer) |
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| Galaxy Dance (Ron Reimer) |
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| White Sparkler (Ron Reimer) |
