Before I begin writing about my fellow hybridizer and friend Dan Robarts, I have to post something very important in regard to Dan's photos which he has graciously shared with me and that is:
All of Dan's photos are COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND REPRODUCTION WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT IS PROHIBITED. (If you would like to contact Dan Robarts regarding his daylily photos you can email him at dwhr@hotmail.com.)
I think I first met Dan at Roy Woodhall"s 3 or 4 summers ago. I remember Roy was trying to get some increase on some of Steve Moldovan's newest intros. Dan was at grad school down at Ohio State University and he would take those daylilies down to the Ohio State greenhouse over the winter. Dan would also help a group of New Englanders (that included Bill Chambers and Carl Harmon) help clear out old seedlings at Moldovan gardens. I did that work one summer with Bill Chambers and Mike Holmes, but the real reward wasn't the satisfaction of doing the work, it was being able to talk with Roy Woodhall and Steve Moldovan about the daylily world. So, some of you probably want to know some more about Dan Robarts and get a little background information and I was fortunate enough to get some from Dan last week.
Dan was born in 1980 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. He then grew up in Lancaster, New Hampshire. From 1996 until 2000 Dan had a landscape/nursery job in high school where his interest in horticulture, plant propagation, and daylilies began to grow. From 2000 till 2004 he went to Bates college in Lewiston, Maine. From college he worked a few years at Boston University where he met Bill Chambers and Carl Harmon. That's where the Ohio connection started where they would travel each summer to work at Moldovan gardens. Dan then went to Ohio State from 2006 till present to go to grad school. In our most recent correspondence, Dan says that Steve Moldovan's true passion was for patterned daylilies, and Dan has made it his mission to continue his lines from his more recently released intros, most specifically Vertical Horizon, which was introduced by Steve in 2006.
The photographs that I am sharing with you today are some of Dan's most recent seedlings. I'll leave it up to Dan if he would like to share his pedigrees with you. I'm pretty sure he will be introducing some of these daylilies in the years to come, so you are getting a sneak preview of what is to come.Some of Dan's favorite daylilies to cross with include Steve Moldovan's Vertical Horizon, Courage to Change, Piece of sky, and Digital Imagery. Dan also likes Gerda Brooker's Reach for the sky, and Curt Hanson's Point of Divergence. The neat thing about having Dan as a friend is I am working with some of the same daylilies and I enjoy hearing his take on what's working and what's not. I hope you enjoy seeing Dan's daylilies today and I hope this makes your winter a little easier to take. Temps are suppose to get down to single digits this week. Bundle up!
