About Us . . .
We were both educators. Jean taught fourth grade most of her career, retiring in 1999. Lee started out as a classroom teacher and moved on to administration, ending his career as an administrator in the Dean’s Office at the University Tennessee College of Medicine. He retired in 1998.
Jean is a Master Gardener and is quite active in their projects. She is also a rug hooker. Lee is Vice President of The Tennessee Valley Daylily Society and travels extensively giving presentations to daylily clubs and symposia.
We are a small daylily nursery selling our own introductions. After some health problems the last few years it became impossible for us to try and keep an inventory of cultivars from other hybridizers, therefore, the downsizing. We occasionally have a few newer cultivars from other
hybridizers for sale that we are no longer using in our hybridizing program.
We introduced our first cultivars in 1996 after beginning a hybridizing program in 1986. We started hybridizing while living in a townhouse with very little yard, renting some land a few blocks away to grow our hybridizing efforts.
In 1993 we purchased property with two acres of land and a 1960s style house that had not been renovated for thirty-three years post construction. After a major renovation, we moved in mid October of 1993.
One of the first things we did at our new property was to erect a greenhouse to further our hybridizing and seedling growing efforts. We now do all of our hybridizing in the greenhouse during March through April, when it is in full of daylily bloom. Completing our hybridizing inside
allows us more time outside when bloom begins to evaluate our seedlings and possible future introductions.
Our outside bloom season is from about the third weekend of May to mid July. We are located in north Chattanooga, TN, in a area known as Hixson, TN. When traveling through Chattanooga on either Interstates 24 or 75, we are only about 20 minutes from where these two interstates join.
We will continue with our hybridizing program because that is what we enjoy most. We normally plant from 1,000 to 2,000 seedlings each year, with an anticipated 70% bloom the first growing season in the greenhouse.
We have a 2-year old labrador retriever named Sara Jessie. We also have a small mixed breed rescued dog named Spikey and a Snow Shoe Siamese cat named Shiloh. As you can see, we are not lonely.