Upcoming Meeting Information:                                           

                                                       

HYBRIDIZING FOR NORTHERN REBLOOM

       On Thursday, November 7th, Ginny Pearce will discuss her hybridizing over the last 25 years.  Her love of perennials began 40 years ago and quickly focused on hosta and daylilies due to their high performance with minimal care. Her involvement with daylilies progressed to hybridizing in 1996. As a single parent she couldn’t afford the newest daylilies she saw in catalogs of the day, so she decided to use her botany education to try creating her own pretty daylily faces. As a teacher, she had summers free to garden and sold perennials at a local Farmer's Market. Some early dabbing success fueled her quest significantly. 

      Once she retired from teaching, she expanded her backyard perennial business and formally introduced her first five cultivars with the American Hemerocallis Society in 2011. She plants only 400 seedlings into the ground each May. Of those, only about 10% are kept, provided they surpass previous ‘keepers’ to earn a place in the evaluation beds. 

      Her hybridizing objective is to create very hardy, robust, and northern reblooming tetraploid daylilies with large flowers of great color, substance, and form displayed as a minimum of 20 buds per well-branched scape. She strives for overall plant performance to ensure a beautiful garden presence as well as valuable hybridizing genetics. She firmly believes northern daylily gardeners should expect similar extended weeks of bloom from individual cultivars that southern daylily growers commonly enjoy. She recently expanded her work with tetraploids to include tall unusual forms in addition to the round ruffled types.

      Ginny currently has 26 introductions with many more beauties in the works for the years ahead. Her PowerPoint presentation will showcase some of her most promising seedlings and upcoming introductions. 

       The meeting will be held at 7 pm in a downstairs classroom of Frederik Meijer Gardens.  Look for the signs.  The public is invited to attend at no charge and no admission fee to the Gardens.

 2019 Calendar of Events

           February 7                          Rebecca Marquardt               Native Plants for Pollinators    
Frederik Meijer Gardens   7:00 pm    

Meeting Rescheduled due to weather   

March 7
           Heidi & Rod Grasman            Spectacular New Plants for 2019
Frederik Meijer Gardens   7:00 pm

April 4 
             Steve Williams               Hybridizing at O'Bannon Springs Daylilies 
Frederik Meijer Gardens   7:00 pm 

May 16 
     Spring Daylily Auction      
           Cascade Christian Church             6:30 pm Drop-Off - 7:00 pm Bidding Begins

                                June 6                                   Rebecca Marquardt                          Native Plants for Pollinators                 Ben and Sharon VanderWilp Garden                             6:30 pm                   

                    July 10-13                               AHS National Convention           Madison, Wisconsin

July 20
Annual Daylily Show
Frederik Meijer Gardens   10 am to 5 pm

 August 3 
                 Club Bus Trip                              to Along the Fence Daylilies                     and Nancy Cooper's Garden          

 September 5 
              Fall Daylily Auction                         Cascade Christian Church           6:00 pm Drop-Off - 7:00 pm Bidding Begins

September 7
Rockford Farmer's Market Daylily Sale
54 South Main, Rockford   8 am to 1 pm

October 3
                  Saundra Dunn                                 Late Blooming Daylilies              Frederik Meijer Gardens   7:00 pm

                November 7                                   Ginny Pearce                       Hybridizing for Northern Rebloom     Frederik Meijer Gardens   7:00 pm

                   December 5                                 Christmas Party Potluck                  Location To Be Determined    6:30 pm   

Daylilies coming up

at the May 2020 Auction

       Free and Clear                    Joy on a Stick
    (Owen-P, 2017)                    (Owen-P, 2017)                  P. Owen photo                     P. Owen photo

      Satiate                               Open Fire
   (Townsend-J, 2013)              (Owen-P, 2018)                   AHS Photo                          P. Owen photo

       Malbec                                Prime Target
    (Owen-P, 2016)                    (Owen-P, 2018)                   P. Owen photo                     P. Owen photo



Past GVDS Gazette Newsletters

February - March 2019

April - June 2019

July - September 2019

October - December 2019