A lady I work with got me started. She brought me several different type perennials that I planted and enjoy still to this day. Then she brought me several clumps of daylilies she no longer had room for. Well the clumps sat in cardboard boxes because they had all the dirt around the roots still. Winter arrived and I never got them planted so I just stuffed the boxes full of oak leaves hoping for the best. Spring came, I noticed them turning green and thinking WOW they survived the winter in a box! They bloomed in the box before I got them planted and things have never been the same. I now grow approx. 275 DLs, 300 TB Iris, numerous, numerous perennials! I am definitely a GARDEN JUNKIE!

Mine has been a rather circuitous journey. When I was very young I liked flowers and grew common things such as Zinnias. Of course, as I got older, especially as a teen-ager, I found other areas of interest and the gardening desire went dormant.

At a still later date, I became very interested in photography. I mostly preferred nature and landscape photography. I very much enjoyed visiting a rose garden not too distant and taking pictures of the roses. Then I decided if I had my own roses I would not have to travel to take pictures. So, I started a rose garden. The photography bug waxed and waned, but the gardening bug was out of dormancy.

I never cared for daylilies until I visited a daylily show. I saw some daylilies that I thought were beautiful and I decided to buy some. FAIRY TALE PINK was very popular and one of my favorites, but darned if I would pay $15 for it when I could buy a rose for around $8. I'm not sure, but think BECKY LYNN and CISTY were my first two purchases. CISTY is a diploid from Joiner, that is a little like FTP. Daylilies were not terribly special until I started hybridizing and then it was all over. When I retired, I had grand plans of having beautiful gardens. Then I got hooked on hybridizing and the beautiful gardens idea is no more.

I hated gardening as a kid. My parents had a huge vegetable garden and Mom grew annuals from seeds, all lined up in a row. The only thing I was permitted to do was weed and that was by hand. No hoe for me, they were afraid I would chop down a plant. My other outside chore was to mow - I still won't mow.

We put three flower beds in here about 15 years ago and pretty much just looked at them. I did design them by flower/color/bloom time but hubby did the digging, etc. I still didn't like working outside.

Hubby started talking about early retirement/moving south, etc and I decided I need to refurbish the beds to something really easy for the future home owner and picked daylilies and grasses for ease of maintenance. I don't remember what hobby my husband was engulfed in at that time (sailing I think) but I did all the work. He just kind of patted me on the head and said good girl.

When the dayliles bloomed, he was hooked. I trotted off to the cocker summer national and when I came home, he had dug a huge new bed around our pond and ordered about $1000 worth of daylilies. I was amazed he would pay as much as $30 for a daylily! Eeegads these were expensive!

And you all know the rest - hybridizing, you could actually create something never seen before, more beds, seedling field, more beds, expand the yard, it's a monoculture so other varieties of plants, more beds, you can hybridize hosta too, more beds, expand the yard yet again for more shade but go ahead and throw in more sunny area too, and of course more beds. I think he is done expanding now but I never say never.

Brooke

Well, let's see now. I guess you could say I was one of those "Born into gardening, gals!" I remember following in my Dad's footprints as he plowed the family vegetable garden, when I was barely old enough to toddle. My Day was a farmer who raised numerous crops for market, but mostly cotton. I can remember riding on his "cotton sack" as he picked along side all the field hands. When I was about 11, my folks purchased some land, and built a new house. Dad was the gardener in our family, and Mom always said I got his green thumb. :) I helped as he landscaped our new homes gardens. We planted everything from trees to annuals. Lots of the plants were "pass alongs" from friends and family. I still to this day, have a rose bush, from a cutting of the old Blush climber Dad planted way back then. I loved gardening then, and I love it even more now.
When I purchased my home 26 years ago, there was no "garden", just one old oak tree, and a pine that had to be taken down because of pine beetles. Everything else in my present garden, has been planted by me. I really got into gardening in a big way, when I left the Dept. of Corrections, and became a SAHM. I had lots more time to devote to my gardening hobby. I first got interested in daylilies, when a friend of my daughters asked her if she knew anyone who wanted to come dig up dl's. Her late husband had been growing them prior to his passing, and she just didn't have the time or energy to continue to see after them. This was about 12 years or so ago. My dl addiction began in earnest when I purchaed my first named cultivars from my friends, Ida and Damond Flynn. Since then, I have been aggressively pursueing my dl addiction!! lol My description of the perfect day, is one spent in the sunshine, among my garden beauties!
So, Dad, if you are listening, thank you for instilling in me, your love for growing beautiful things.
Jan