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.
