Hi, my name is Dave Mussar and welcome to the website for Hillside Daylilies. This is what happens when a hobby gets out of control. I am not a commercial grower although I do sell a few seeds and the occasional plant on the Daylily Auction to support my addiction. This site began simply as a location to store images for the auction and has evolved into something more than that. I will be adding more images, registration details and comments as time and energy permit (not to mention that of my brother the Webmaster!). Virtually all of these images are mine and taken in my garden. A few have been borrowed from others with permission and are identified as such.
I have been a perennial gardener for many years and as such have always had daylilies in my gardens, mainly Stellas and fulvas. The need for more garden space prompted a move in 1996 to an acre and a half in the country outside the city limits of Guelph, Ontario just under an hour's drive southwest of Toronto. We fell in love with a hilly treed lot on a quiet side road and built our home there. Only then did I realize my mistake! The hill behind our house, which inspired the name for our garden, is part of a gravel moraine and there is virtually no topsoil on the property and tons of rock. A good place for a gravel pit and hardly the place for your dream garden but we still love it.
In August 2000, a friend and former neighbor from Guelph visited our garden. It was then I learned that he had been seriously hybridizing daylilies for a couple of years. He gave me some pollen to play with and a few fans of some of his newer cultivars and an addiction was borne. I set my first few pods that summer and the following spring joined the Ontario Daylily Society and the American Hemerocallis Society. I am now a certified AHS garden judge and my personal collection is up to about 450 named cultivars. I plant about 600 - 650 seedlings annually and probably have about 2,000 seedling in total at any given time. My first large crop of seedlings bloomed in 2003.
One of my hybridizing goals is to develop a "spotted" daylily with large distinct spots spread evenly over the petals like you can now find on a phalenopsis (moth) orchid. Currently there are a number of speckled or stippled (very finely speckled) cultivars that I have collected and am using as breeding stock. My first speckled seedlings bloomed in the summer of 2004.
Another goal of mine is to produce vigorous, hardy daylilies that perform exceptionally well in northern climate zones. To that end I have been using many of the newest plants introduced by the late Brother Charles Reckamp who was based in Techny Illinois. Brother Charles was one of the early hybridizers of tetraploid daylilies. His lines were highly inbred, some of the first to show gold edges, were exclusively dormant and very northern hardy plants. Out-crossing these cultivars to the work of other breeders will often result in hybrid vigor, producing some exceptional plants. Brother Charles is best remembered for his cultivar ANGEL'S SMILE, which has been used by many major hybridizers and has lead to the development of over 90 distinctive new cultivars.
However the breeding potential of his latest introductions has remained largely unexploited in part because they are difficult for the big southern breeders to grow. I believe there is much potential waiting to be unlocked in his lines for a northern breeder. In 2003 Roy Klehm of Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery, which has introduced Brother Charles' newest cultivars since 1975, named and registered with the AHS 41 of what might be the last of his selected plants so there is much new material to work with.
Another favorite hybridizer is Oscie Whatley based near St. Louis, Missouri. Oscie breeds for distinctive, clear coloured flowers on vigorous growing plants. Oscie's breeding lines are very unique often incorporating some of his newest tetraploid conversions. His plants are well represented in my collection and second in number only behind those of Brother Charles.
I look for plants that have great colour and perform well in my climate and therefore tend to favour the work of northern hybridizers such as Melanie Mason, Bryan Culver, Curt Hanson, Steve Moldovan, Gary Schaben and others including Brother Charles and Oscie Whatley. Please check out my Daylily Links to to access some of their websites. My climate zone is CDA zone 5b and USDA zone 4-5.
Thanks for looking at the website. I would be very interested to receive your questions and comments. You can reach me at: david.mussar@sympatico.ca.
All the best!
Dave
This page was last updated on 2008/11/30.