My wife, Judy, and I started growing daylilies about four years ago when my mother gave us some daylilies she had received from her mother and friends. My first reaction to daylilies was really disappointing I loved the flowers, but didn't like the foliage (it looked so untidy). Then a lovely pale yellow daylily bloomed that really sparked my interest. I have always enjoyed growing vegetables, flowers, etc., planting seeds, seeing seedlings grow into lovely plants. I believe that is definitely in my blood, as my mother loved flower gardening and my father loved vegetable gardening and would peddle vegetables he had grown. Folks always looked forward to seeing Earl come by in his old pick-up truck loaded with vegetables during the harvesting season.
We began visiting Oleo Acres and Copenhaver Daylily Farm, both which are also located in DeRidder, and purchased some of our first daylilies from them. We were truly astonished at the beauty of these daylilies and how lovely their gardens were. They were most gracious to us and answered many of our questions.
At this time we started surfing the web to find any information on growing daylilies that we could. One of the first and best web sites that we found was Bill Jarvis, Farmer in the City, in Houston, TX. This was by far the most informative site that we found. Not only is it is loaded with good information about daylily culture, but has many beautiful daylily pictures.
In December 1999, we joined the CENLA Daylily Society in Alexandria, La, and also became members of the American Hemerocallis Society. The CENLA Daylily Society meets the 1st Saturday of the month and usually has a program about some aspect of growing daylilies. Each November they have a Fall Daylily Symposium for this area, where well known hybridizers speak and give insight on growing daylilies, present slide shows and answer questions. Activities at the Symposium also include a plant auction, a table sale of plants and other miscellaneous items. Tickets are $25 per person & include breakfast and lunch served on site.
We are a hobby garden, not a commercial daylily garden, but we do sell daylilies in the spring and in the fall at reasonable prices. For a descriptive list of available daylilies that we have for sale, call (337) 463-2478, or e-mail us at [email protected].
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