Breeder Profile - Darrel Apps

Darrel Apps was is a career horticulturist who held three degrees, all from the University of Wisconsin. He worked as a State Specialist in Ornamental Horticulture at both the University of Kentucky and the Pennsylvania State University.  Darrel also held the Departmental Head of Education at the world famous Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. 

Darrel named and introduced over 480 daylily cultivars and received the coveted Betrand Farr hybridizing award from the American Hemerocallis Society. Several of his daylilies have been patented and sold under trademark names by commercial nurseries over much of the United States and Eastern Canada. His daylilies ‘Pardon Me’ and ‘Happy Returns’ are grown in temperate climates worldwide.

Darrel Apps started hybridizing daylilies when he saw how well the plants did in the hot Lexington summers while working at the University of Kentucky. He made his first cross in 1969, and bred daylilies for over 50 years! Much of Dr. Apps’ later work had been developing daylilies that thrive in Northern climates including mid-Wisconsin, zone 4.

While in Kentucky he started breeding reblooming daylilies.  Two well-known plants that came from his early hybridizing efforts were ‘Happy Returns’ and ‘Pardon Me’.  Both were produced by Roy Klehm of Klehm’s Nursery and introduced by John Elsley, Horticulture Director at Wayside Gardens.  

In 1993 Darrel decided to start his own nursery in Bridgeton, NJ.  It was named Woodside Nursery.  The nursery had several functions: breeding new plants, evaluating daylilies from several growers, selling through a mail order catalog, selling retail to the general public, and selling wholesale to large mail order catalogs.  Each year Woodside Nursery produced 25,000-30,000 new seedlings.  This breeding work had three main directions: reblooming diploids, fancy tetraploids, and unusual forms.  

Two series names appear among his daylilies, Woodside daylilies and Bridgeton daylilies; Diploids in the Woodside group and tetraploids in the Bridgeton group.  Woodside Romance and Woodside Ruby are examples of the first and Bridgeton Bishop and Bridgeton Fresh Paint, the second.    

 A long term partnership with Centerton Nursery of Bridgeton, NJ produced two Centerton trademark names Trophytaker Daylilies™, and HappyEverAppster™.  Dr. Apps selected the plants for Trophytaker Daylilies™ from the introductions of many different hybridizers and bred the plants for the HappyEverAppster™ group.  Names of Apps cultivars in the second group include: ‘Rosy Returns’, ‘Red Hot Return’, ‘Romantic Returns’, ‘Stephanie Returns’, ‘Dynamite Returns’, ‘When My Sweetheart Returns’, ‘Big Time Happy’, ‘Scentual Sundance’ and ‘Apricot Sparkles’.

Apps sold his nursery in late 2007 and retired to his hometown area of Wild Rose, Wisconsin where he continued to breed daylilies.

Darrel did not give up on hybridizing daylilies when he retired because the whole process had become a lifestyle. In Wisconsin, he converted part of the basement to banks of lights for growing seedlings and purchased two adjacent village lots which became the outdoor trial grounds. Each year he planted about 2,500 seedlings and selected some of the best. He registered several plants worthy of introduction, all of which came through zone 4 winters with lows in the minus 30s.

As a promise to himself, he did not want to get back into a retail business. He considered it his good fortune to have a nearby garden center, Graziano Gardens, LLC, W3280 Akron Ct, Pine River, WI 54965, offer to introduce his plants.

Over the years, in conjunction with Graziano Gardens, LLC, he was able to continue to register and introduce nearly 100 additional daylilies. Graziano Gardens continues to make these post-2014 registrations available, along with legacy daylilies from Dr. Apps’s earlier hybridizing work. A new series, the “Once Again” series, featuring reblooming daylilies, was established in partnership with Graziano Gardens.

Dr. Apps, always the teacher, freely shared his horticultural knowledge with the team at Graziano Gardens. Shelly’s son, Sam, worked alongside Darrel and made several crosses guided by Dr. Apps. To honor Sam and his aptitude and hard work, Dr. Apps registered ‘Sam’s Royal Red’ in Sam’s honor.

Additionally, Graziano Gardens, LLC continues to honor Dr. Apps’ work with the on-going evaluation of 300 plus seedlings selected with Darrel’s guidance from over 3,000 seedlings from the last of Darrel’s crosses. 

Dr. Darrel Apps died in May of 2025, talking about his daylilies with us until just days before his passing.