Viola Parker was an Arkansas hybridizer in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, once served on the AHS Board of Directors for Region 13, and won several Honorable Mention awards plus two Awards of Merit for her introductions. Also, I'm proud to state, she was my grandmother.

I remember her yard being like something out of Southern Living, with all sorts of flowers, shrubs and trees. My dad stated that at one time Viola estimated she had over 1500 daylilies. I always loved to go to her house and play in her gardens. She used to get up at 4:30AM during the summer so she could watch her lilies awaken and make her crosses as soon as the flowers began to open. She kept journals on her flowers that told whether the blooms opened early, stayed open late, and whether or not they stood up to heat, sun and rain. Included in these journals were details about the plants themselves: dormant, semi-evergreen, evergreen, stalk height and strength, early, mid-season or late bloomers. She had a passion for green throats, the illusive white, and also loved the whimsical shapes of unusual forms. Her two Awards of Merit were won for H.'Arkansas Post' and H.'My Son Bob'.

I always enjoyed "helping" when she held her annual Open House at Hope and Happiness Gardens. I was probably in the way, but she always found time to make me feel important, even when she was entertaining throngs of people. Having a small yard and garden of my own, I now realize all the work and love she put into her gardening every year.

My biggest regret is that of her 176 registered cultivars, my family only has about 15 varieties left. I do still have most of the ones named for our family members, but so many are probably lost forever. If anyone has Parker cultivars they would be willing to share, please feel free to contact me, Libby Beecher, at legacyinlilies@gmail.com.

Data courtesy of Harold McDonell (of H.'Mary's Gold' fame) Fayetteville, Georgia
Photo source: The Greater Atlanta Hemerocallis Society 1986 Convention Handbook

Clyde Davidson was already a fixture in the Greater Atlanta Daylily Society and Region 5 when I first became a member in 1976 and was instrumental in getting me active in daylily societies. My wife and I attended a daylily show in Decatur, Clyde's home-town and a suburb of Atlanta, that year and saw numerous entries with Clyde's name on them. We took down his name and address and visited him the next week. We ended up visiting for almost 3 hours and his enthusiasm for daylilies and daylily people was infectious. We immediately became member of Greater Atlanta, which led to membership in AHS. He also was the person that got me started in hybridizing.

Until moving to a retirement center in the early 90's, Clyde and his wife Frances maintained an extensive commercial garden of almost five acres. Clyde's specialty was hybridizing tets, which he started doing in the late 60's when tets were still rare and mostly unappealing. He maintained contacts with most of the leading tet people of those days and most of his early work was out of the 'Crestwood' series of early tets. He also used Brother Charles Reckamp's daylilies in his program extensively as well as daylilies from Dr. Peck. He did no conversions on his own and relied on others for his early hybridizing material.

Clyde's goals were to create daylilies with excellent garden habits and many blooms. In his time, rebloom was almost unheard of in terms of being a reliable trait so he valued well-branched scapes and high bud count very highly. Most of his creations were dormant, were excellent growers, had clean pretty foliage, and had excellent scapes. Indeed, he valued all of the above over the flower itself. I often saw him leave his very best flowers unselected for introduction because he did not like the other plant habits. Due to a bad early experience, he would not allow any seedling not selected by him to leave his seedling bed and all unselected seedlings were composted through a leaf shredder. He also was not a fan of the very fat form of flowers that became more popular in the 70's and 80's. He preferred full but not fat well-formed flowers that opened early and that opened fully reliably. (Many of the early tets did not open well and often did not start opening until about 9 am.)

Most of Clyde's introductions carried the 'Decatur' prefix in the name. They were more popular with average gardeners than with the connoisseur/collectors of the day. They were most popular in the mid-west where they seemed to perform at their very best. They were also, of course, popular in Georgia.

Clyde was a very interesting and warm person. He was retired from Southern Bell, part of the old AT&T after about 35 years of service. His brother-in-law was president of AT&T at the time of his retirement in the late 60s. His wife was a teacher and ran a pre-school program out of their home for many years. Neither ever met a stranger and loved visitors to their garden. There was a large garden shed that contained an open-air gathering area that seated as many as a dozen people at a time. During bloom time, the seating area as well as the garden would always be full of visitors. It was THE Atlanta place of choice for daylily socializing. However, Clyde always took a break from 12 N to 2 PM for lunch and a nap so you would never see him during that time.

Clyde was also very generous, allowing people to collect pollen from any plant in the garden after he completed his own hybridizing. He gave away as many plants as he sold and he was very generous with donations to Greater Atlanta Hem Society and Region Five auctions. He was very active in both organizations. He possessed extensive knowledge of daylilies and many other plants and always shared that knowledge freely. The 1986 National Convention in Atlanta was dedicated in honor of Clyde and all his contributions to Greater Atlanta and Region Five.

Clyde and Frances decided to give up the garden in the early 90's and move into a retirement center while they were still in good health. However, Clyde could never quite give up daylilies and convinced the managers of the retirement center to allot him some garden space around the center where he continued to grow a few of his favorite daylilies and hybridize on a strictly hobby basis. He lived there until his death a few years ago. He was 95 I think at the time of his death. His wife Frances died just before Christmas a year ago.

Clyde Davidson was a wonderful man who lives on in his daylily creations and in the memories of those like me who were fortunate to know him in life.