Musings

NCDC - IN THE BEGINNING

By Bud Bennett

One day in July 1955, Carey Quinn, a long time family friend and neighbor of the family asked me to visit with him to attend an open garden event at the home of Willard King. I was floored with Willard's excellent landscaped garden and yard along with the outstanding blooms of new exciting daylilies. I was so excited I didn't even notice the dozen or so people wandering throughout the garden with me. Since I had only seen a few different kinds of daylilies that I grew in my garden, I believe I was a lot more excited than they were.

The following fall and winter Carey Quinn cultivated my mind with some daylily talk and a few hems, as he must have done with some of the other folks. This lead up to a meeting at the home of Willard King on May 22, 1956, when 12 of us formed the NCDC. We kept every-thing very simple, The Charter was only a half page long, and the dues were only a dollar. We decided to use Willard's double-car carport as the meeting place. New members would be given a free daylily and a green thumb [Ink]. New members also pledged that they would grow the ever-popular PAINTED LADY [Russell '42]. The was really a joke, it seems that P. L. looked too much like 'fulva' to suit Willard And Carey.

The 12 who signed became the first board of directors along with Willard King as the President. And they are:

• Judge Carey Quinn, Bethesda, MD. He was The Daffodil Society's first President and was a driving force to form it. His garden was very tiny and he grew everything to perfection, growing plants like exhibition style mums, gladioluses, bearded iris, as well as the daffodils and daylilies.
• Willard King, Bethesda, MD. He started out growing roses when he lived in Chevy Chase but gave them up when he build his house near Potomac. This became a truly wonderful garden with outstanding garden borders and landscaping. He became a daylily hybridizer with much more space with this move. At the time of this meeting Willard was on the AHS Board of Directors.
• Harvey Warwick, Bethesda, MD started his estate plantings in the early to mid-thirties with large mature specimen trees and shrubs. I believe that it was once the most magnificent garden in the whole middle Atlantic area. Harvey was a retired architect from a very important DC firm. He also hybridized daylilies; however, he did not ever name any as he just used them for landscaping his large estate.
• Charlie Culpepper, Arlington, VA was a retired Research Plant Physiologist at the USDA. Charlie was a well-known daffodil hybridizer, and was known in Virginia as a horticulturist and I believe that there is a small park there named after him.
• Florence Matteossian, Bethesda, MD. She was the club's first Secretary.
• Rita Butterworth, Oxon Hill, MD was a Federation Garden Judge and was very helpful with the first flower show. She was the registrar for the '59 convention.
• Clay Huff, Bethesda, MD who later resigned and was replaced by Dr. George Darrow
• Dr. Frank Coe, Bethesda, MD who moved later and was replaced by Phil DuMont. Phil's daughter Annie Weinreich later became AHS President.
• Milton Earle, Burtonsville, MD
• Harold Kirk, Silver Spring [Aspen Hill area] MD a DC teacher. Harold later moved to NC where he became a Region 15 RVP.
• Evan Flory Arlington, VA, whose brother Wilmer was the AHS President in '57-58.
• Bud Bennett, Wheaton, MD who had a small garden and about 6 daylilies at the time.

At the time of this meeting both Carey and Willard were close friends and were heavily involved with daffodils. Carey was putting out newsletters for the Daffodil Society, and Willard was running up and down the mid-Atlantic area judging daffodils. They also had been to many of the daylily conventions together and they felt that they could put together a much better convention than those conventions they had previously attended. This is perhaps the very reason they decided to form a daylily club. However some of these 12 members of this newly formed club were old time codgers who had better things to do. So they went looking for some energetic new members from the area. Some of these new members were; Christine Rhodes, Takoma Park, MD; Her daughter Shirley Hutmire, Takoma Park, MD; Mildred Benton, Chevy Chase, MD; H. Franklin Lehr, Chevy Chase, MD [He just happened to be my old Junior High School teacher]; Ed Matteossian; Phil DuMont; William Shannon; Barbara Schroeder; and John Moats, all of Washinton, DC.

1958 saw a region three meeting with a car tour of five gardens [The future convention gardens] and a fine dinner at an excellent Bethesda restaurant. The cost was only $5 for a box lunch and a Crab Imperial/roast beef dinner. This meeting was my first duty as a new NCDC President and I had no idea what a region meeting was all about. The favorite hems of the day were RUFFLED PINAFORE, JACK FROST, FAIRY WINGS and PRESIDENT RICE.

The National AHS Convention was held July 9, 10, 11, 1959 at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington and the cost was $25 [including buses and meals]. There were over 400 attendees who visited five gardens on a Friday with ease [No traffic and no beltway]. There were three gardens in Bethesda, one in Silver Spring and one in Virginia. After attending a symposium at the Hotel Saturday morning, the attendees visited the three Bethesda gardens again. The five gardens visited were Willard King, Carey Quinn, Harvey Warwick, all of Bethesda, Evan Flory, Arlington, VA and Harold Kirk, Silver Spring, MD The favorite hems of the convention were GEORGE CUNNINGHAM [President's Cup], PRESIDENT RICE, GREEN VALLEY and BESS ROSS.

The first few club slide shows were just like a party and they were held in Willard King's living-dining room. Many AHS members usually attended these shows from afar, from such places as North Carolina, New York and Oklahoma. Seems that those attendees had been coming to a winter slide show at King's home for some time. The person from Oklahoma was Dave McKeithan and he always brought excitement every year with his slides. He lived near and visited the two biggest growers in the country every year with his camera. Those being Gilbert Wild & Son, Sarcoxie, MO; and the other was Russell Gardens, Spring, Texas.

In 1959 the club held its first "public" slide show in a large public facility in Wheaton Plaza. Phil DuMont and Barbara Schroeder ran this and all of our slide shows for a good number of years.

1961 saw the club's first plant sale with prices of plants at only fifty cents.

In 1963 the club had its first daylily show with LUXURY LACE the winner of Best In Show. Other blue winners were NORTH STAR, WAR EAGLE and FRANCIS FAY.

In 1969 the Club Guest Plant Program was started.

Events the club has hosted

• AHS National Conventions; '59, '87
• Region Three Meetings' '58, '67, '69, '76, '79, '81, '85, '91, '95

Past Presidents

• Willard King '56-58, '66
• Bud Bennett '58-62, '70-72, '79-87
• Carey Quinn '63-65
• Fred Bickford '67-68
• William Hollis '69
• Philip DuMont '73-74
• Paul Botting '75-78
• Margo Reed '88-90, '93-94
• Marla Drake '91-92
• Ira Penn '95
• Rich Galloway '96-97
• Kevin Walek '98-[2002]
• [Kathleen Schloeder 2003-Persent(2004)]