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| Bill Munson (Photo courtesy of Roy Woodhall) |
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| Bill Munson (Photo courtesy of Roy Woodhall) |
Just in the last couple weeks I have gotten a bunch of old daylily catalogs from my friend, Curt Hanson. I wanted to put together a couple segments about some of the hybridizers that came before me and Bill seemed like a perfect hybridizer to start with. Here is a little more information about Bill.
Bill Munson was born in 1929, in Gainesville, Florida. He received a degree in Architecture from the University of Florida and worked in this field until his retirement in 1980. He became involved with daylilies as a young man, and with his mother, Ida Munson., established Wimberlyway Gardens in Gainesville.
He became interested in tetraploid daylilies in the early 1960's and decided to dedicate himself to the development of what he felt were potentially superior cultivars. This was a risk, because of the deep contention between the dips. vs. the tets. camp in the AHS at the time. However, he and his mother persevered and succeeded in producing 35,000 seeds from induced tetraploids in 1972. From these and others, he built his award-winning tetraploid hybridizing program. He was a primary force in the development and acceptance of tetraploid daylilies.
Besides Bill's many successses in hybridizing and many awards for individual cultivars, he was a stalwart member of the American Hemerocallis Society, serving as a board member and President. He received both the Society's highest personal awards, the Bertrand Farr Silver Medal in 1967, and the Helen Field Fisher Gold Medal in 1991.
In 1975, he established the Ida Munson Award for the best double daylily, in honor of his mother, herself a well-known hybridizer whose Hemerocallis 'Ida's Magic' won a Stout Silver Medal in 2001. He later authored a book which was considered by many to be the definitive volume on daylilies: Hemerocallis, The Daylily (Timber Press, 1989) Courtesy of Betsey Clark and the AHS Archives.
Here are the covers from some of Bill's wonderful daylily catalogs:
Bill Munson from his book, Hemerocallis, The Daylily:
I began to grow daylilies in 1947 and began to hybridize at once. I used cultivars from my three mentors, Ralph Wheeler, Ophelia Taylor, and David Hall to start my first line. The first cross was 'Prima Donna' (Taylor) X 'Mission Bells' (Hall). Several selected seedlings were then crossed with 'Show Girl' (Wheeler) and a line of voluptuous pastel diploids followed. The line was taken to the sixth generation before I became intoxicated with tetraploids in 1960 and decided to abandon it. 1960 saw the madness start and a consuming drive to develop the best possible tetraploids emerged. I obtained all the tetraploid cultivars available at that time and simultaneously embarked upon a journey to convert significant diploids by all possible methods. 1962 saw my first induced cultivar bloom. A tetraploid cultivar blending the lines of Orville Fay and Edna Spalding by crossing 'Superfine' X 'Dorcas' proved to be my first tetraploid break-through, numbered TDS-1. It became the parent along with 'Crestwood Ann' of 'Oriana', a 6 inch tomato-rose-cream with red eye zone and gold throat. TPMFFSB-2 was an induced tetraploid from 'Prairie Mist' X ('Frances Fay' X 'Sleeping Beauty'). The same year TSGSB-100, an induced tetraploid from ('Satin Glass' X 'Sleeping Beauty'), bloomed and became a part of an elaborate foundation that 20 years later we are still building upon.
In the 1960's one searched endlessly for new tetraploid material---for the gene pool was meager and the need for more esoteric material became more obvious with each passing year. With the use of 'Crestwood Ann', 'Kathleen Elsie Randall', 'Magnifique', 'Kings Cloak', 'Tet. Chandelier Shimmer', 'Tet. Ruth Bastain', 'Astarte', ' Fugue' and 'Tet. Sari' we began to carve out our tetraploid program for today and tomorrow.
Here is a sampling of Bill Munson introductions:
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| African Grape (Bill Munson) Photo by Cheryl Day |
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| Aisha (Bill Munson) Photo by Cheryl Day |
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| Benchmark (Bill Munson) Photo by Jacki Kropf |
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| Cameroons (Bill Munson) |
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| Chamonix (Bill Munson) Photo by Barb Ziolkowski |
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| Chinese Scribe (Bill Munson) Photo by Michael Bouman |
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| Court Magician (Bill Munson) Photo by Jacki Kropf |
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| Highland Lord (Bill Munson) Photo by Barb Ziolkowski |
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| Ida's Magic (Munson) Stout Medal. Photo by Stefano Peroni |
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| Malaysian Monarch (Bill Munson) Photo by Tito Manolo |
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| Morticia (Bill Munson) Photo by Elaine Seifert |
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| Nile Crain (Bill Munson) Photo by Stefano Peroni |
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| Nivia Guest (Bill Munson) Photo by Brian Reeder |
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| Persian Market (Bill Munson) Photo by Elizabeth Arndt |
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| Ruffled Lemon Piping (Bill Munson) Photo by Elaine Seifert |
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| Sovereign Queen (Bill Munson) Photo by Brian Reeder |
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| Water Dragon (Bill Munson) Photo by Cheryl Day |
Steve Moldovan was good friends with Bill Munson and spoke highly about their friendship regularly and how they would grow each others intros over the years. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Steve and remember seeing some of these intros over at Steve's. Steve shared a piece of Water Dragon (Munson) with me and I had it and many other Munson intros in my garden for years. Lots of fond memories from my early days. My one regret was that I never got to visit Wimberlyway Gardens. I came into daylilies a few years after it went out of business. Curt Hanson loves to talk about the days when he, Jeff Salter, Liz Salter, John Rice, and Dan Hansen spent time there. Bill would let them cross in his garden. Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Special thanks goes to Cheryl Day, Jacki Kropf, Barb Ziolkowski, Michael Bouman, Stefano Peroni, Elaine Seifert, Brian Reeder, Elizabeth Arndt, and Roy Woodhall for use of their photographs. All photographs are the property of each person and use without prior consent is prohibited. Next segment I will feature old catalogs from Rollingwood Gardens, the daylilies of Jeff and Elizabeth Salter. Thanks for stopping in.
