Golden Spread Daylily Society
Established October 29, 1991

History by Doug Smith
Reprinted from the Region 6 Newsletter, Spring 1992

In Amarillo, Texas, during the 1940s and 1950s interest ran high for daylilies. One of our club members, Kate Graham, was very active back then in planting daylilies in the city parks and around public buildings. She remembers ordering daylilies from a grower in Spring, Texas. Apparently, this was Hugh Russell of Russell Gardens.

On March 4, 1945, the daylily was adopted as the official flower of the city of Amarillo. The next year, Hugh Russell honored Amarillo by introducing Hemerocallis 'City of Amarillo', a beautiful golden yellow daylily.

Jane Meyers, the director of the Amarillo Garden Center (since renamed Amarillo Botanical Garden), has been instrumental in rekindling interest in growing daylilies there. Jane arranged for a bus tour of my garden in Pampa, Texas, on Saturday, June 19, 1991. I was thrilled at the enthusiasm my 55 visitors showed. The daylilies spoke for themselves. H. 'Betty Woods' and H. 'Ed Murray' were especially admired. I had handouts ready of Welcome to The World of Daylilies. Some of my visitors asked if I would help them start a daylily club in Amarillo. I agreed, gladly, and we began our monthly meeting at the Amarillo Botanical Garden. At the October 29th meeting we officially became the Golden Spread Daylily Society, with 14 original members. The name was suggested by Rex Johnston so that everyone across the Texas Panhandle might feel welcome to join our club. Maxine Gault was elected President, Ruth Malacara was elected Secretary Treasurer, and I was elected Vice President. Rex had taken some very good slide pictures of my daylilies during the tour. I had also ordered slides from the AHS Slide Library and we all enjoyed the slide shows at our meetings. We took advantage of the sale that Lone Star Garden had going on then and put in a group order. I gave the members some plants from my own garden, as well. Because of the upcoming holidays and winter weather ahead, we decided not to meet again until February 24, 1992.

Our meetings are held on the 2nd Sunday of each month at 2:00 p.m., and the dates of the meetings are published in the Amarillo Botanical Garden's monthly newsletter.

Webmaster: Ray Houston
Revised: 05/28/2010
Menu by Milonic Solutions