Daylily, Ed Murray
This last week we went on a trip and I stopped at Hem Haven Daylilies in Fairhope, Alabama (eastern side of Mobile Bay) owned by John and Nancy Falck. It is always intersting for me to see different operations and how they do things. I would say that Hem Haven Daylilies has about 3,000 – 4,000 daylilies all of which are in pots! They all looked great, even in mid 90’s with lots of hummidity. They are a registered AHS Display garden with specific gardens beds that include: a Stout bed, a historic bed, and a doubles bed. They also have a commercial area off to the side, and another area where they do their hybridizing.
What was amazing to me was that even in their display beds, all their plants were in pots – sunk in the ground. What John did is to “plant” a pot that slightly larger than the one he had his daylily in. Then he would slide his potted daylily into the sunken pot. When I asked him about this, he said that it made things much easier for him when changing plants around and he didn’t really have to “dig” any plants when he wanted to move things. He mainly used 3 gal pots for this. I have seem some similar things done in other home gardens and in some large commercial tree nurseries, but this was the first time it had seen it in the daylily world. It is an interesting concept. I may just try that later on in the fall in one of my demonstration gardens.
In his commercial area, he had all 2 – 3 gallon pots on black landscape fabric. In the hybridizing area which was under shade cloth (so he could work longer in the mornings), he built large wood framed areas that held all of his 3 – 5 gallon pots of registered daylilies which he used in his hybridizing program. John told me that he is halfway through planting his 7,000 seeds this year and that he is using a deeper seed pot this year. Hoping that he will get more of his seedling better rooted before lining them out, hence a better survival rate. He also showed me one of seedling which he planned on introducing this fall. It was a creamy, light pink/yellow that was heavily ruffled and with a lot of substance to the petals. He told me that it would still look as pretty at 6 pm that night, as it did at 11 am when I saw it.
All in all, I had a great time. Of course I always do when I am looking at flowers, especially daylilies and iris. I would recommend seeing Hem Haven Daylilies if you are ever in and around Mobile, Alabama.