Patricia and I grew up in Port Arthur, Texas. Nearly all of our relatives grew daylilies which, at the time, we took for granted. Patrick’s parents planted the passion for our loving daylilies at a very early age because they had a yard that placed emphasis on this flower from the year, 1950. They bought flowers from the hybridizers from southern Louisiana and their yard was full of flowers that were not just the common yellow variety. Patrick was about ten years old when his mother taught him how to hybridize, but it wasn’t until thirty years later that it began to play out in our yard.

Patricia and I dated through our high school years and when she would come over to my house, the first thing that she did was to run to my parent’s back yard to view daylilies that were cutting edge for the time. Patrick’s parents had a city sized lot, but it taught us how much could be done on a small scale.

Later on, after teaching 38 years at the University of Central Arkansas and Patricia putting in 29 years teaching elementary school children, we were able to devote serious time to growing our flowers. We now have over 600 registered cultivars, too many seedlings to count, a small greenhouse, and have seven of our own registrations.

Our AHS display garden was properly named "Shovel Garden Daylilies" because we have several art forms made with shovels including a Shovel Garden Angel (right), shovel fountain, a shovel peony, along with numerous shovel heads which decorate our yard.

Our seedlings are started in the greenhouse during the month of February. The excitement of hybridizing is always high because about 1,500 seedlings are rotated out each year so there is always something new to view during bloom season. Flowers possessing characteristics that we find attractive are placed in a special bed for further evaluation.

Our display garden (1120 Salem Road) only occupies a half acre city lot, but it is located on a very busy road in Conway, Arkansas. We are fortunate to receive many garden visitors during the bloom season and have made presentations concerning our hybridizing to garden groups across the state.

More of our photos can be seen on our MyDaylilies Webpage. Our email address is: patx2@conwaycorp.net. If you're in our area during bloom season, please let us know.

please click on top left photo to start the viewing