LITTLE ROCK — On a warm May morning, Harry and Dorothy Roland sat on the front porch of their Pangburn home reminiscing about how their collection of daylilies had seemingly taken on a life of its own. A lizard scampered by Harry’s feet. Bluebird Hill Farm is a peaceful place with a view of rolling hills beyond the multitude of daylily beds.
Each May for the past 16 years,to share their love of daylilies, the Rolands have opened up Bluebird Hill Farm to the public. The daylily tours have been conducted for two weeks in the past, but this year, the Rolands said they’ll only be open Memorial Day weekend. And this will be the last year for the annual daylily viewing.
“Look at us; we’re old,” Dorothy said, then laughed. “Harry’s 84,and he does most of the work.”
She said the more they grew the lilies, the more they liked them.
“We started with just a few,” Dorothy said. “We enjoyed them so much we’d invite people from church out for ice cream socials, and they enjoyed it so much, we opened it up to the public.”
Between 200 and 300 people come to Pangburn to see the flowers, and Dorothy said they even sell some of them.
“Our daughter got us into it,” Harry said about their daylily hobby. “She lived in Minnesota and had a daylily garden. She wasin the f lower business, and she said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to have some of these.’”
Harry said he spends about six to eight hours each day working on the lily beds. Each variety is labeled, and there are more than1,100 varieties at Bluebird Hill Farm.
Daylilies were originally classified in the lily family Liliaceae but were later reclassified into their own family, Hemerocallidaceae. Gail Rasberry, president of the Arkansas State Daylily Society, said the flowers are not actually lilies.
Many people find daylilies intriguing because there is avariety of colors, shapes, markings and heights.
The flowers don’t take a lot of special attention and are very adaptable.
“It is also very easy to crosspollinate them and create your very own unique daylily,” Rasberry said in a 2010 Three Rivers Edition article.
“Daylilies do not come true from seed. Like humans, every cross, like every child, is unique and carries with it the genetic information of its ancestors. … Many dayliliescan be traced back to some of the very first hybrid cultivars registered with the American Hemerocallis Society, but it is not required to know the parentage to register a plant.”
The couple held hands as they tromped through the bed to pose for a photograph with one of the yellow lilies.
“We hope to get more people interested in daylilies,” Dorothy said.
The farm is at 152 Cardinal Road in Pangburn. Tours will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.Saturday through Monday.
To learn more about the Rolands’ garden or to set an appointment for a tour, call (501) 728-3557.
Find out more about daylilies at www.daylilies.org.
Staff writer Jeanni Brosius can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or jbrosius@arkansasonline.com.
Three Rivers, Pages 51 on 05/24/2012