Mary, here is some background information on Pat and Grace for you. Pat and Grace were both educators after they finished college - Pat taught HS Science and Grace worked with gifted children, elementary age, I believe. They stumbled across daylilies like many of us, back in the 1970's, when Pat brought a few daylilies from a lady selling them on Long Island where they lived. Pat with his scientific background had hybridized rhododendrons. Relying on faulty memory, I believe he told me it took 7 years to see a bloom from seed with rhododendrons. So naturally, when they began growing daylilies, Pat became interested in hybridizing them because you can see results faster with daylilies. As they became more interested in daylilies, they would travel to see noted hybridizers during their summer vacations. One summer they left the day school was out to drive to NC and see Iron Gate Garden, where they met Van Sellers. I believe on that same trip they drove out to Murfreesboro, TN to meet Va. Peck ( a pioneer in tetraploids) Not too long after that, Grace introduced her brother Vic to Van Sellers at Iron Gate, and he too began hybridizing daylilies! Vic won the Stout Medal for 2012! At any rate, Pat and Grace became more and more interested in daylilies and joined the Long Island Daylily Society and AHS and met more daylily people and their addiction grew. One of Pat's mentors in LIDS was George Rasmussen. Pat registered his first daylily in 1982 and Grace's first was in 1986, appropriately called 'Coming Out Party.' Grace was from the very first interested in small and miniature daylilies and Pat quickly became interested in large flowered tetraploids, although a few of his early daylilies were diploids. ( I used to grow his Almond Puff, a dip.) Early on, Pat was interested in edges - I remember seeing 'Creative Edge' and 'Wedding Band' early on - both were quite revolutionary for their day and Creative Edge was one of the first to have a gold edge. They've come a long way, baby!
Pat and Grace opened a nursery in Long Island, named 'Floyd Cove' and people began to buy their daylilies, grow them, and the business grew. They were active in LIDS ( Long Island daylily Society) and won the Region 4 Service Award in 1992 for service to Region 4. Eventually they decided to take the big leap and go into daylilies full time. People recommended that they move to Florida where all the big daylily nurseries were, and one could see seedlings bloom sometimes in a year! So they moved their nursery to FL ( sorry, this is relying on faulty memory) sometime in the mid- 90's - maybe around 1994 and established Floyd Cove in Sanford, Fl. Floyd Cove quickly became a big time daylily operation, and their daylilies began to receive acclaim from all over. Pat won 3 Stout Medals in a relatively short period of time, and he also won the Bertrand Farr Medal, AHS's top award for hybridizing. Pat and Grace had one daughter, Christine, who registered a daylily in her teens. Tragically, at age 18, Christine was killed in a single car accident only a mile from their home and nursery in Sanford . This was in the late 90's. The location was so sad to Pat and Grace that they just couldn't stay in Sanford and so they moved their nursery to Enterprise, FL, where Floyd Cove remains today.
For years, Pat and Grace ran Floyd Cove by themselves, and people would flock to "Daylily Mecca" each May to see their garden. Pat became interested in spiders, unusual forms, doubles, and patterns and made great advances in all of these areas. He took the large flowered tetraploid with edges to new unexplored heights, developing double and larger edges and edges with different colors, gold, silver, green, white. Pat began working with patterns and introduced patterned daylilies he called "butterflies". Likewise, Grace's miniatures, particularly her "popcorn" doubles, received much acclaim, and Grace won the Bertrand Farr Medal just last year. Back around 2007, the business had become so large that Pat and Grace decided to cut back and so they went into a partnership with Guy and Karen Pierce. Originally they stayed at Floyd Cove and were able to hybridize using their seedlings, while Guy and Karen took over the business. This became difficult, and so in late 2009- early 2010, Pat and Grace decided to leave Florida completely and Guy and Karen took over Floyd Cove entirely. Pat and Grace moved to N. CA and they continue to hybridize, but on a much smaller scale. Part of their sales agreement was that they couldn't register or introduce daylilies for a period of years, but I won't be surprised if they introduce a few daylilies over the next few years. They have found the growing conditions in CA to be quite different from either FL or LI, as I understand it!
They are some of the nicest, most down to earth people I've ever met in daylilies, and they have always mentored a lot of young hybridizers. Pat has always graciously shared his wealth of knowledge with people. Grace has also - recently she wrote an excerpt for me when I wrote an article for the Region 3 newsletter on miniatures. They also wrote an article for the Region 7 Spring newsletter which I hope will be out soon!
I have grown hundreds of their daylilies and at least a couple hundred still remain in my garden. Too many pictures to include here but you can see lots of their daylilies in some of my past blogs.
Hope this helps - there's lots more, but this may give you a little of their background.
