Who we are at Cherry Hill

Cherry Hill Garden is actually more of a daylily farm than a daylily garden. It is the home of Nancy, Bob, and Elissa Watson who have been seriously growing daylilies since 2005 here in west-central Indiana.  We had a few daylilies prior to that, but they were just one of the perennials among many.  Now, they definitely dominate the landscape of our almost 2 acres. We grow approximately 1000 named varieties and maybe 5,000+ seedlings at any one time and about 600 plants under observation for possible introduction.  

 Nancy, Bob, and Elissa (sitting) with our wonderful dog, Riley, out among the daylilies.


Our major outlet for sales is a local event called the Herb Faire, sponsored by the Wabash Valley Herb Society.  It is held in May every year and we sell bareroot daylilies that were 'lined out' the prior fall.  We do have about 15 introductions, which we sell, but we don't offer many intros by other growers since we want to spend our energies and garden space on creating new hybrids and not on sales.

We do our best to stay focused in our hybridizing, and no longer cross 'pretty to pretty'.  We have a white/red program (Cherry Pie a la Mode) a small-and-tall tet program (Carmen Sandiego, et al.), a 'toothy' program (Rosie Cotton's Ribbons), a yellow/red program (Mayan Warrior and Bucklebury Ferry) and others that haven't yielded rewards worth registering yet.  We are working on oranges, either  with or without teeth (Flame of the West, Muy Caliente!, and Extreme Tangerine) and our daughter, Elissa, is working on fancy dark purples. We are also working on small tets, tall-and-small diploids and species crosses and are several years into bringing Hemerocallis fulva back into mainstream breeding.  No intros from it yet, but it has very quickly lost its tendency to run and has quickly moved into fancy faces and new colors, and adding extra vigor to the mix. 

All three of us are actively involved in our local society, the Hoosier Daylily Society, which meets in Indianapolis monthly from October through May, basically the 'off' season for our plants.  We are fortunate to have an easy-going bunch of members, including some other hybridizers, Bret Clement, Pete Webb, Chris Wilhoite, and Greg Lough.  We are also 'regulars' at the Shirley Farmer Hybridizers meetings, both spring and fall annually, in Dayton, OH. We also attend many of our Region 2 ADS events. 

Check out our website, cherryhillgarden.plantfans.com and our Facebook page under Cherry Hill Garden. 





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