I guess we all remember when we first became interested in daylilies. And for most of us, it was when we realized there was so much variety. I was attending a Horticulture Conference in the mid-90s and Darrell Apps was speaking. I was amazed at the colors! Immediately, my perennial buyer and I decided we had to offer more daylily choices to our garden center customers. As a designer of perennial gardens, I started putting more of these in my designs. I often met with "Ugh! I hate orange." I promised the reluctant clients I would come back and replace them if desired, then added their favorite colors, which blended with other perennials. Never had to replace any and often got requests for more. Now that my husband and I have retired from our landscaping/garden center business, I am selling some of my top choices in daylilies to the garden center (it helps pay for my habit).

As I got more interested in daylilies from that first glimpse, I joined the Tidewater Daylily Society, became an AHS Exhibition Judge and, of course, drag my husband to gardens across Virginia and elsewhere. On our first trip to Mecca, David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss were still in FL. We met the two of them, along with a younger hybridizer who was helping them. Many years later I found the old photo my husband took and it was Jamie Gossard, who is now one of my favorites. On that first visit, David turned and asked if I hybridized. When I told him NO, he smirked and said, "Not yet, anyway". I had no idea that was a prophetic statement.

When Mr. Clarence (Crochet of "Budreau" fame) visited our Regional in 1999, he asked me what would my goals be if I did start hybridizing. I told him I would like to make daylilies that were continuous bloomers, that dropped their blooms neatly (self-deadheaded) and did not set seeds. He kindly pointed out to me that if they didn't make seeds, you couldn't use them for further hybridizing. This made perfect sense, but it also seemed to me that rebloomers like Stella DeOro would bloom a lot better (and look better, to boot) if they didn’t expend so much energy making so many seed pods. This was just a friendly exchange, which I forgot about until later.

In the spring of 2005, I visited the North Carolina State research station in Fletcher and met Dr. Tom Ranney, who was doing so much interesting breeding work on many kinds of plants. He was making some crosses to create seedless plants that would bloom longer because they made no seeds. He was crossing diploids with tetraploids and doing embryo rescue to make triploid seedlings. This was how the 'Diana' & 'Aphrodite' series of Rose-of-Sharons were produced. They continued to bloom all season because they wasted no energy making seed pods. A light bulb went off and I asked him if he was working with daylilies. He said it wasn’t on his list of things to do and likely would not get there, but he would try to advise me if I wanted to give it a try. WOW – wouldn't it be fun to see if the same principle applied to daylilies as to Hibiscus syriacus and other shrubs?

I was a member of a committee of the VA Nurserymen & Landscape Ass'n when a new person (a plant breeder who developed the Pluots) was hired as director of the Beautiful Gardens ® program. When I asked him about this technique relative to daylilies, Dr. Rumen Conev said "Let's try it." We did. I made the crosses and he did the embryo rescue in the lab at the Institute for Advanced Learning & Research in Danville, VA. He got a grant and I made more crosses in 2006 and Dr. Zhiwu Li improved the protocol for the rescues. I was loving making daylily crosses, so when they told me in 2007 that I didn’t need to make any more, I felt a little deflated. So, I started making my own crosses of dipsXdips and tetsXtets, hoping for some offspring that would be gorgeous, but also strong, long blooming and showy.

The triploid "babies" are still being evaluated in the warmest and coldest parts of the state. A paper was published on the rescue work and we are still trying to decide if being sterile will lead to more rebloom. Initially, it seems to me there is more to it, so I am collecting as many rebloomers & instant rebloomers & bloomers with 2 scapes per fan as I can find for using as parents. In the meantime, Dr. Li is converting any outstanding triploids we find into hexaploids, so they can be used for breeding. I would never have known to tell Mr. Clarence about this. I am also using Matthew Kaskel's low rust seedlings for breeding and Dr. Li is working on rust resistance in his lab.

That's my journey so far, and I am totally hooked. For the first time, I am actually planning which crosses I want to make next summer. I love the variety I find in daylilies and I think that is one thing that keeps so many of us interested. I learn something from every hybridizer I hear speak at our club or at conferences or in person. There's a lot to learn, and I'm an infant.

My husband Bill is a landscape designer and he has created a beautiful garden for us to enjoy and for me to grow my daylilies in. It will be an Open Garden this summer when TDS (Tidewater Daylily Society) hosts the AHS Region 3 meeting June 25-27, 2010. Your questions and comments are welcome at Linpinkham@aol.com .