This local garden tour highlights a unique flower
Stop and smell the daylilies 💐🍃
Local Master Gardener Brenda Bridges says growing daylilies opens up “a world that you didn’t even know existed.”
The beauty of these plants is enough motivation for Bridges, who is usually a night owl, to get out of bed early.
“I’ll still come outside every single morning that I can. And I was never an early bird,” she says. “Now I’m an early bird in the morning just because [the lilies] are more beautiful than any other time.”
While Bridges had been planting roses and pollinators for years, it wasn’t until her son encouraged her to attend an American Daylily Society garden tour in Mississippi that she was introduced to growing daylilies. There, she met gardeners from across the country and learned just how unique the plant is.
Daylilies are easily hand-pollinated, so gardeners can hybridize them and produce seeds with distinct genetic traits. The American Daylily Society recognizes more than 100,000 unique hybrids cultivated across the country.
In Louisiana, daylily appreciators have their own space through Region 13 of the American Daylily Society, which covers Arkansas and Louisiana. Baton Rougean Joe Goudeau is the regional president and has been growing daylilies for more than 30 years and hybridizing them for over 20. His creations end up in gardens across the region, including Bridges’.
But Goudeau is more than just a hybridizer. As president of Region 13, he organizes meetings and tours. All regions of the American Daylily Society must hold an annual meeting. This year, Region 13 is meeting in Baton Rouge. To motivate members spread out across the two states to travel, Region 13 is organizing a local garden tour.
This upcoming tour not only inspires participation but also advances the Daylily Society’s mission to engage the community in the care of these plants. On Saturday, May 16, three private gardens and one public garden, BREC Botanic Gardens at Independence Park, will be open for tours.
Members of the Daylily Society are showing off their private gardens that include more than just their staple plant.
“Those are actual gardens that people take care of on a day-to-day basis. That’s their hobby,” Goudeau says. “You just never know what you’re going to find by touring a private garden because it takes on the personality of the owners.”
Bridges’ garden will be featured on the tour, and in addition to her daylilies, she will be showing off her many pollinators.
“I love daylilies, but pollinator gardens—the butterflies, the hummingbirds and all of that—that’s my heart,” she says.
Goudeau appreciated garden tours even before he became president of this regional group. He says his favorite thing is the connection gardeners make when they get to meet.
“You get to visit with people who have a common interest, people you have never met,” Goudeau says. “My best friend and I met through daylilies. He lives right there in Lafayette. Our paths would have never crossed if the two of us hadn’t been collecting and hybridizing daylilies at the time.”
The Region 13 Daylily tour is self-guided and begins at 7:30 a.m. on May 16. The tour is free and open to the public this morning only. For more information on the tour, visit Region 13’s website or read its spring newsletter.
