Clarke Farms

Barrie is located 90 kilometers north of Toronto, Canada and we are in zone 5. You can see from my winter garden shots that the area is in a snow belt that blows in off Georgian Bay. The one saving grace is the normal 3 feet of snow cover for the daylilies.

Clarke Farms is what I blissfully call my small backyard daylily hobby garden. Because of space restrictions, each year as more and more seedlings need to be kept for evaluation, it seems to leave less room for registered daylilies.

The summer of 2009 revealed some disappointments in my hybridizing program. My biggest crush was the sheer lack of actual new blooms in what I anticipated would be nearly 1,400 beauties accumulated from 3 years of planting and waiting. In the end, I had about 600 bloom and chose just a few, “maybe keepers” for my seedling display this year. I particularly like a cross between (CF seedling x Trump Card) which has a white arrow inner mark, another being (Druids Chant x CF seedling) and perhaps the ruffle pink (CF seedling x Unknown) and a cross between our Ontario based hybridizer, Brian Culver's (Spirit Zone x So Many Stars).

One of the good things that happened this summer through my backyard hybridizing program was my involvement with Gilda's House, a cancer related community building fund here in Barrie, and the local newspaper covered the event. During bloom season, I sold approximately 400 seedlings donating half of the proceeds to the charity. "One of a Kind" was my marketing theme as I spread the Clarke lily mystic across the land.

For 2010 my outlook has turned to patience and to continue to experiment with my CF brand. I also intend to give garden names for my favourites, Buzz of the Day, Changing Gears, Clever Canuck, Click & Show and Easy Big Fella have already been named.