Saturday 23 July 2011

Culver Daylily Farm -Garden Club Visit

I love daylilies... their bright colours, ease of care and the  length of bloom  all make it a wonderful plant to have in the garden . It was with great anticipation  on a very hot , dry and sunny July day  the Garden Club visited the Culver Daylily Farm. Do check out the link. Mr Culver is a hybridizer  specializing in tetraploid  daylilies for the North,daylilies that are hardy, vigorous and healthy plants for our northern climate.



Bryan Culver worked as the 7th generation on the family dairy farm which was an original land grant from the Canadian Government until 23 years ago

when he became the manager of one of Canada's largest charities.
In the 80's, while commuting to the farm to help his aging mother with her many flower beds and gardens, he bought a few daylilies with the first being old STELLA DE ORO.
In 1993, a little test to see how to hybridize some of these daylilies became addictive and he continued to grow more and more seedlings.
Bryan registered his first daylilies in 1999 and he received his first AHS Honorable Mention Award for one of those earlier introductions, JADE PRINCESS.




All the daylilies are grown in field conditions without the aid of any artificial benefits to enhance daylily growth.




Bryan  educated us on  how hybridizing is done, what to look for in a daylily, how to care for  a daylily.....
We toured the 4  garden plots   early in the morning and even tho the day became  very hot were reluctant to leave it was such an imformative   tour....
.....some  of us were smart and brought water ,umbrellas and summer hats.
3 daylilies were my favs, tho I loved them all .
Leandra Hockridge

love the purple eye and ruffles


Spirit Fox


bright orange


Sunshine Canyon



much more yellow than appears here.
 We all came away with a wealth of information and  admiration for the  zeal  Bryan has for dayliles.
Now where in my tiny garden can I find room for a few of these beauties?




































7 comments:

Racquel said...

What a fun tour, thanks for sharing Rosemary. Hope you brought something home for your garden. :)

Rosanne said...

Looks like it was very interesting!

verobirdie said...

Oh, you can always find a place for a day lilly! This visit must have been a pleasure!

Karen said...

Rosemary, what a fun trip! I like how he doesn't amend the soil or fertilize to make the plants grow artificially, this way you can see how the plant does in just about any situation. So many colors to choose from! And I did the same thing, bought two more plants to put in our garden this week when we were on tour and I just said I was downsizing? Oh, dear, but they are gorgeous, aren't they, and so tempting.

Shady Gardener said...

What a great day you had, Rosemary! And that's the rub! Where can we find room?? ;-)

ZONE F DG TEAM said...

I've always had a soft spot for the Asiatic variety myself, though these are very tempting.

Donna Heber said...

Loved the farm and those daylilies. Thank you for the wonderful tour.