Ken and Cynthia Blanchard
3256 S. Honeytown Road
Apple Creek, Ohio 44606
330-698-3091 cblancha@bright.net
Blanchard Gardens, an AHS Display Garden, is located in the country near Wooster, Ohio. Although the primary focus of the gardens is daylilies, the large meandering beds are designed to provide interest not only in July but throughout the seasons. The gardens are a beautiful blend of daylilies, hostas, grasses, perennials, annuals, trees, and shrubs.
The Blanchards find creative aspects of daylily gardening appealing—taking pleasure in growing new plant varieties and in finding ways to improve their gardens each summer. They also enjoy the anticipation and excitement inherent in hybridizing. In the mid- 1980s, the Blanchards purchased five daylily plants to brighten the front of their barn. Now, 25 years later, they have amassed a collection including over 800 named cultivars and also bloom one to two thousand seedlings each year. They have two named daylily introductions; the most recent Hemerocallis ‘Opulent Edge’ was registered in 2007. A Blanchard seedling won the Englerth Award in 2006; however, it has not been registered. Ken also won Best Seedling at the 2008 Ohio Daylily Society show.
Asked to name their daylily favorites, they responded, “It often depends on what is blooming the day that you are asked that question. A few of our older favorites are H. ‘Bill Norris’, ‘Ruby Spider’, and ‘Rock Solid’. Some newer varieties that have performed well in our gardens are H. ‘Shores of Time’, ‘Red Kangaroo’, ‘Orange City’, ‘King of the Ages’, ‘Beside Still Waters’, and ‘Before Night Falls’. We do not pamper our plants so all of the ones we have listed should grow well in Region 2.
”While most people come to see the daylilies, visitors also enjoy the large perennial garden and shade hosta beds. The hosta collection includes approximately 125 varieties. Blanchard Gardens also has a small water garden and a number of very large pots and boxes filled with annual plantings.
One reason Ken and Cynthia enjoy gardening is that it is so removed from their everyday jobs. Ken is a large animal veterinarian who spends the majority of his day, and sometimes his nights, with sick animals. Cynthia teaches enthusiastic and energetic kindergartners. They both appreciate their jobs but look forward to the peace and satisfaction they find in their gardens. They can be found live-heading in the garden every summer evening. “Gardening has brought us into contact with many wonderful and sometimes unique individuals who share the same enthusiasm and excitement that we have for daylilies.”
Fran’s Garden
Dale and Fran Houghtlen
32 Homewood Avenue
Norwalk , Ohio 44875
419-668-1140 missions@accnorwalk.com
In the spring of 1991, Dale Houghtlen brought home a catalog of daylilies being sold by the late Jim Biaglow, a co-worker at NASA at the time. His wife Fran’s first question was, “What’s a daylily?” It didn’t take her long to find out! After looking through the catalog, Fran spent her first hundred dollars on a collection representing a range of colors and forms. When the daylilies bloomed for the first time that summer, Fran was hooked. This collection still has a special place in her gardens.
The more Fran learned about daylilies, the more she planted until they had become the mainstay of the Houghtlen’s landscaping. Fran has planted a number of theme gardens: one garden has Bible names, one is nostalgic, and yet another contains all Stout Medal winners. In 2008 she added a 16-foot circular bed containing cultivars by Ohio hybridizers.
Asked about her favorite daylilies, Fran wrote, “If I had to pick favorites among the more than 800, I would have to zero in on spiders and unusual forms, especially the miniatures, and the very large unusually formed doubles and the polymerous cultivars. Truth is, I love them all.”
Like all hemaholics, Fran does some back yard hybridizing and is currently growing about 500 seedlings, give or take a hundred. She has one registered H. ‘Ollie Francis Memorial’ and three others that will likely be registered in 2009.
Of all the esthetic additions to the gardens, favorites include the peaceful water features added by Dale.Dale added a large fountain, built a millhouse with water wheel, and designed a stream lined with river rock. “There is just something about babbling, dripping, splashing, running water that calms and soothes,” Fran noted. He also dotted the shady areas with seating for resting, relaxing, and soaking in the beauty. Dale just finished building a pergola over the brick patio he installed a few years ago.
The large collection of hostas, including all “Hosta of the Year” winners, many other trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs and annuals complete the acre that surrounds the Houghtlin’s century old home that once had only apple orchards for company.
Fran concludes, “Dale and I wish you a hearty welcome to our gardens!”
A wonderful garden experience awaits visitors to the Kingwood Center, a former estate featuring a historic French provincial house and 47 acres of landscaped gardens, greenhouses, and hiking trails. Built in 1926 as the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kelly King, the gardens have been open to the public since 1953.
The Daylily Collection is of special interest to our group.The Ohio Daylily Society member Charles Applegate, who serves as Senior Gardener at the Kingwood Center, curates the collection. A mix of 200 old and new varieties can be found in the garden. The Kingwood Center is the site for the Englerth Award Seedling Bed for 2010, where unregistered prized seedlings from Region 2 hybridizers are featured.
Amid the vast acreage of the gardens, other highlights include the Perennial Garden, the Terrace Garden, the Formal Garden, and the Greenhouses. A wide brick pathway leads you through the Perennial Garden’s large borders with its wonderful array of perennials, grasses, biennials, and annuals. No matter what time of the year you visit, you will find color, texture, and beauty in abundance. Amid the 300 varieties in the Perennial Garden you will find Filipendula rubra ‘Venusta’, dusty meadow rue, Verbascum, Armeria, Ajuga, Astilbe ‘Fanal’, Hosta tokumama, Japanese blood grass ‘Red Baron’, Cinnamon ferns, Pulmonaria, Fallopia japonica ‘Variegata’, and the pure white Clematis ‘Marie Boisselot’.
Kingwood Garden’s two-acre Terrace Garden features a pond complete with waterfowl and peacocks. A variety of woody and herbaceous plantings, flowering shrubs and grassy lagoons are arranged in a flowing contemporary garden style inviting visitors to spend time enjoying nature.
In the Formal Garden you will find sculptures, stone walls, pools, bath houses, a trellis, ornamental stairs, iron railings, bluestone paving, and a lovely vista surrounded by colorful floral plantings.
An interconnected maze of plant-filled rooms makes up the Greenhouses at the Kingwood Center. Take time to venture inside, and you will find the Cacti and Succulent House, the Production House where all the annuals for the estate are started, the Tropical House with its large collection of rare and exotic tropical plants, and narrow Orangery. These greenhouses surround the beautiful Greenhouse Courtyard. There is also a plant sales area in the Greenhouse.
Amazingly, there are even more things to explore at the Kingwood Center. The Woodland Gardens are evolving with much to discover and admire, such as the giant hostas, pulmonarias, primulas, ferns and sedges. An Herb Garden, Formal Rose Garden, and fantastic Peony Gardens, including many varieties from hybridizer Charles Klehm of Klehm Nursery, are also outstanding. And you might discover something new in the trial and cutting flower gardens where new plants are put to the test.
Daylilies by the Pond
David and Sara Knackstedt
781 State Route 61 E
Norwalk, Ohio 44857
419-663-4394 www.dayliliesbythepond.com
In September 2000, the Knackstedts moved from Shelby to Norwalk, Ohio. The property was approximately 3.3 acres with a pond in the middle of the front yard and many mature maple and spruce trees. This was not the start of the Knackstedt’s plant addictions, but enabled them to expand them. Thus began their wonderful adventure in planning this ever-expanding garden of flowers, trees, and shrubs.
Sara is the main gardener. She has been gardening since she was three years old. When her grandmother, aunt, and mother added flowers to the vegetable garden, they influenced her love of flower gardening. When Sara was ten years old, she would send a quarter to the Michigan Bulb Company in spring to order gladiolus bulbs. Thus her plant addiction was born! She would spend hours poring over gardening catalogs, planning out her flower garden for the summer. By high school, she was thinking about colleges and chose the Agricultural Technical Institute, a branch of the Ohio State University. Sara graduated with an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Floriculture.
Sara’s daylily collecting started about 1995. She had never been overly fond of daylilies up to that point because she thought that they were all like the ditch lilies or all the color yellow. Then the Knackstedts were connected to the Internet. A whole new world of plants entered her plant scope, including the double daylily form! Over the many years of flower gardening, she always tended to collect and love the full double bloom. Once she saw how many double daylily cultivars were available, she just had to order as many as possible! At one point, she had hoped to collect all the double daylilies, since there were not all that many. She has now settled down a bit and only collects the best and newest doubles, while maintaining her original double collection. She also started to collect spiders and unusual forms. The spiders and unusual forms really make the double form show off much better than having doubles placed with single flowered daylilies.
The numbers and forms of daylilies increased dramatically. Currently, Sara grows around 830 daylilies with close to one half in double form, one third spider and unusual form, and the remainder in single form. She started to hybridize for hardy, tetraploid double daylilies about five years ago. Her hybridizing continues to grow and change. She dearly loves great edges, so she tends to pursue a few crosses in that area, then takes a break from the doubles to make a few crosses with tetraploid unusual forms. Currently, she is growing approximately one thousand seedlings and plans to introduce a few daylilies in the near future.
The Knackstedts have been members of the Ohio Daylily Society for many years now, and have really enjoyed meeting all of the other daylily collectors in this area. In 2005, Daylilies by the Pond became an American Hemerocallis Society display garden. They have enjoyed having many garden visitors since then. In 2007, they created a website for the daylilies and other perennials to share great plants with others around the country.
David is collecting unusual conifers and is an active member of the Sandusky Bonsai club. Their other plant collections are 150 bearded (Germanica) Iris, 20 Japanese (ensata) Iris, 480 Hosta, 75 coral bells (Heuchera), 5 redbud trees (Cercis), 20 Japanese maples (Acer), and am now adding a few tree peonies. Lilium bulbs, such as tiger, Asiatic, oriental, trumpet, oriental x trumpet, dot the daylily beds to keep the colors very vibrant.
Points of interest around the garden include three raised beds with unusual conifers, two xeriscaped beds, a two ton granite rock water feature, a pergola, some unusual sculptures dotted throughout the garden, several landscaping beds with many cool plants, and two espalier apple trees. Their current work area is their immediate back yard where they are busy creating paths and new beds to accommodate many new trees and bushes found on their nursery treks.
The Knackstedts’ love of plants in many forms has taken them on an adventurous journey over the years, and they totally enjoy their peaceful, serene garden areas. They try very hard during the gardening months to always have something blooming. They plan to continue with their passions of collecting interesting plants and daylilies. Please feel free to visit them any time; however, a phone call ahead will guarantee that they are home.
Willow Brook Acres has a fascinating history. From 1905-1909 it was a popular park named Willow Brook Park, which is why Sally coined the name Willow Brook Acres for her garden. Sally has a collection of early 20th century postcards featuring the park.
As you tour the 10-acre property, you will discover remnants of days gone by. Sally’s large borders and middle gardens grow in what was once a large pond. People came in horse and buggies to canoe on the pond, pitch horseshoes on the high grounds, and participate in activities in a two-story pavilion. In the winter the locals ice skated on the pond. Before refrigeration they cut ice from the pond and stored it in an “ice house” across the creek where the bridge is. The remains of the foundation are still there. The hill or raised area behind the backyard border is a pile of rocks covered with soil. It was once a “shadow path” around the edge of the big pond.
The property’s story also includes a history of greenhouses and gardens on the land. They were long gone when the Marcums arrived, but Sally says, “It is still in the air, it seems.”
Yes, you will sense a passion for plants not only in the air during your visit! Sally has been developing Willow Brook Acres for over 20 years. She has over 800 varieties of named daylilies along big bold plants, such as variegated cattails, pink mallow, and large patches of Asiatic and Oriental Lilium. In a marshy area, Sally has planted an old variety of water iris.
Sally hybridizes, and selectively culls her seedlings, maintaining about 500 for observation. In her garden, you will find her introductions, including her 2007s—Hemerocallis ‘Willowbrook Touch of Midnight’, ‘Willowbrook Lindsay Nichole’, ‘Willowbrook Little Miss Anna’, the 2008s ‘Willowbrook Jurassic Amber’ and ‘Willowbrook Snappy Dresser’ and new ones also. Always evolving, Willow Brook Acres has become more focused on seedlings as Sally’s hybridizing program grows.
“My garden is special to me because it grew with me into a lifestyle I love. I have a creative streak, and my husband and I both love the out-of-doors and the natural beauty on our land. We are both able to work out our visions for the property we love.”
What did their vision include? In the fields, there is a large mowed area, daylily beds, a creek and bridge, and two woods. The far woods, reached by a bridge that spans the small creek running through the property, is a natural woods where Sally plants native wild perennials. In the other woods Sally plants extra hosta and keeps a clearing mowed for her picnic table and bench. It’s no wonder that Sally frequently hears visitors to her garden say, “It looks like a park.”
Lilies Of the Field is a family venture that started about 11 years ago when the Schwalls moved into their newly constructed home in Galion, Ohio. With just a small landscaping budget, they chose to plant perennials, and included daylilies in the mix. Those few daylilies quickly grew into a collection of 900 cultivars. Wendy heads up the family daylily operation.
Jeff is very handy around the garden. He constructed their cedar arbor in the display beds and built the brick patio in the gazebo. During the growing season, Jeff’s mom, Jeff’s brother and his wife walk across the field to help “live-head” each evening.
They are assisted in the garden by their daughter Molly, a Youth member of both the Ohio Daylily Society and the Metropolitan Columbus Daylily Society. Molly grew up with daylilies, but her interest in daylilies increased after attending the Region 2 meetings in Cleveland and Evansville. Molly became quite noticeable as she wrote all her favorite flowers on a “wanted” list. What a wonderful surprise to have Ohio Daylily Society members Ed and Virginia Myers bring her some of those flowers to grow in her garden. Hybridizing daylilies has also been of interest to Molly. In 2008, she placed first in the junior division at the Ohio State Fair with her self-determined 4-H project on “Hybridizing Daylilies.” Again, many generous people have donated seeds and pollen to encourage Molly’s hybridizing efforts.
Fellow Ohio Daylily Society members Sharon Rastetter and Kit Walter were instrumental in encouraging Wendy’s interest in daylilies. Both of these generous people shared numerous plants as well as their vast knowledge in growing and showing daylilies. Sharon and her husband Bill helped the Schwalls plant their first sales beds about five years ago, leading to a family business that has grown each year. The Schwalls currently have 38 sales beds where approximately 1500 plants are lined out. Most of the daylilies that are for sale are lower priced, older varieties. The business, Lilies of the Field, is open during July for local customers from the Richland/Crawford county areas and visitors from as far as Columbus, Cleveland, and Lima.
With over four acres, Wendy and Molly have plenty of room for their 2000 daylily seedlings. And Wendy, who especially enjoys growing daylilies with other perennials, has planted various varieties of coneflowers, anemones, hollyhocks, baptista, heuchera, and delphiniums. Annuals such as ageratum and alyssum accent many of the beds. The property also includes a potting shed and newly constructed pole barn.
Each family member has individual taste in daylily forms. Wendy likes spiders and unusual forms, and her favorite daylilies include Hemerocallis ‘Simplicity in Motion’ and H. ‘Orange Clown’. Jeff is partial to very tall daylilies like H. ‘Sears Tower’ and H. ‘Notify Ground Crew’ while Molly’s favorites have lots of ruffles such as H. ‘Connie Can’t Have It’.
Lilies of the Field has been an AHS Display Garden since 2006. The family is looking forward to hosting visitors from throughout Region 2—and beyond— during the 1010 regional meeting.
Amber Strope’s 1.5 acre garden is named for her other past business, Cherished Memories Antiques. She has been gardening all her life; however, daylilies became a passion in 2003 after she moved to northern Ohio from central Illinois in 2002.
Amber is a one woman and one Pug dog operation. They can be found in the garden every evening and all weekends. Gardening is a stress reliever because she works a full time job along with gardening full time. If you are planning a visit, please call ahead to ensure that she is home.
The garden consists of approximately1000 registered cultivars, with several hybridizer and theme beds featuring the work of Curt Hanson, Dan Bachman, Dan Trimmer, Larry Grace, Frank Kropf, R.W. Munson, Jamie Gossard, Rick Yost, and others. A few of her favorite daylilies, based on garden performance here in northern Ohio, are Hemerocallis ‘Julie Newmar’, H. ‘Hologram’, H. ‘Halloween Hocus Pocus’, H. ‘Dare to Love’, and H. ‘Jewel in a Crown’.
Amber’s passion for daylilies seems to lean toward the extra large flowers, whether that is spiders, unusual forms, or extra large forms. She is especially interested in those flowers hybridized by northern hybridizers.
She enjoys daylily shows very much and has been showing for the last 4 years. In 2005 she won the Ohio Daylily Society’s Novice Award; in 2006, the AHS Registered Extra Large Flower award for H. ‘Julie Newmar’; in 2008, the AHS Registered Extra Large Flower award for H. ‘Sheba’s Jewel’.
Along with showing daylilies, Amber is busy hybridizing. Her hybridizing goals consist of producing large and extra-large flowers that are northern hardy with good bud count, branching, and color clarity. She is currently growing approximately 400 seedlings and another thousand or two that will bloom for the first time in 2010. Amber has one co-introduction with Dan Bachman, named H. ‘Dancing in a Pink Dress’, a very large unusual form cascade in a gorgeous pink color. She will be proudly displayed in clump strength on the 2010 Summer Region 2 bus tour.
Amber is very proud to be chosen as a bus tour garden for 2010. Look for her on the daylily auction under the name “1rockypug.”
Nature's Trail
Jim and Barb Burkey
4434 E. Smithville-Western Road
Smithville, OH 44677
330-345-9006; 330-465-2771 BurkeyB@sssnet.com
Follow the meandering stream through Jim and Barb Burkey’s five acre Nature’s Trail garden, and you will find beautiful treasures along the way. You can explore the butterfly garden, nursery and tea room. Enjoy the garden art sprinkled throughout. Relax in the meditation garden with its picturesque bridge that provides passage to plantings on either side of the stream. Jim, an excavator, has added a number of rocks and will be happy to tell you the stories to go with them. The garden also includes a pond with a bathhouse and a potting shed.
In the shady children’s garden, complete with a playhouse, you will find plants that have names that go with childhood. There’s a Butterfly maple, Pigsqueak, Lamb’s Ear, Dragon Tails, Bunny Ears, H ‘Black Kitten',Winnie Pooh', 'Bumblebee', Chocolate mint, and White Coral Bells.
There is something in the garden for every season from the witch hazels in late winter to the berries on the holly at Christmas. Spring, of course, bursts with lots of color in hosta, heuchera, pulmonaria, and blooming trees unfolding until the daylilies and perennials bloom. In the summer the garden’s bright daylilies grow beside hosta, coral bells, astilbe, flowering trees, ornamental trees and shrubs, annuals, perennials, and tropical plants.
The Burkeys have been hooked on daylilies since the early 90s. When asked why they are daylily enthusiasts, they replied, “They cause you to slow down and enjoy each flower because they are all unique. Live heading or dead heading gives you that opportunity. There’s ease of care. We have too much to do to fuss with temperamental plants. They’re beautiful…and in endless varieties.”
Each year seems to spark something new in the world of daylilies for the Burkeys to focus on. “One year it was pinks, next reds or whites. One year I was searching for fragrant, and then spiders. It was short, now it’s large and tall. We like them all.” Some of their favorite daylilies at Nature’s Trail include H. ‘Heavenly Angel Ice’, ‘Primal Scream’, ‘Gold and Frankincense’, ‘Barbara Mitchell’, ‘Siloam Double Classic’, ‘David Kirchhoff’, ‘Point of View’, and ‘Siloam Bye Lo’.
Nature’s Trail exudes the aspects of gardening that the Burkeys enjoy—variety, serenity, peacefulness, and nature. Barb reports, “Basically, I would try anything that was attractive to birds, butterflies, or wild life. Now we have a little more wild life than we want. LOL!”
The Burkeys welcome visitors anytime and enjoy sharing and visiting with other gardeners. Their garden is open by chance or phone call and select daylilies are available for purchase.
