The Jean and Alfred Goldner Hybrid Daylily Collection

The Jean and Alfred Goldner Hybrid Daylily Collection. . Alfred (Al) H. Goldner (Class of 1941) an avid horticulturist, and Jean Walsh, a student in related arts with a passion for color and textures, met while both were attending Michigan State University. They married in 1941. While attending graduate school in Horticulture at Ohio State University, Al was called to service during World War II at the U.S. Army's Plumbrook Ordinance Works operated by the Trojan Powder Company where he worked as a chemical production foreman. After the war Al returned to Michigan working as a plant buyer for the garden department of the J.L. Hudson Department Stores in Detroit. In 1953, he and Jean founded the Goldner-Walsh Nursery in Oakland County, MI., Al Goldner was a true pioneer and gentleman farmer as well as an innovator in the landscape industry of Michigan. Jean later applied her skills in design and use of color and texture in their flower shop. Together, they created a business recognized as a premier landscape nursery and garden center providing training and experience for numerous college students of horticulture and landscape architecture. Among Al's contributions include the introduction of the use of exotic plant materials in landscape design including Japanese maples, rhododendrons, azaleas, hollies, dwarf conifers, espaliered apple and pear trees, and daylilies., Daylilies (Hemerocallis) were one of Al's passions and he gained fame as a breeder of many outstanding hybrids. His philosophy regarding daylilies was that they should be durable, beautiful, and bloom from moming until dusk and not be restricted to being 'show- room pleces. Selecting for large, sturdy flowers with bright colors was the goal of Al's breeding program. He was proud to state. "You can see my daylily flowers if driving by at 55 mph in a landscape design; they stand out and are outstanding Additionally, Al selected plants that met the criteria he felt were most important environmental tolerance (requiring minimal care), self dead-heading of spent blossoms, colors that look good under street lights at night, hedge-like growth, and quantity in addition to quality. To produce quantities of his hybrids, Al opened his own tissue culture lab in Howell Al's first hybrids were registered with the American Hermerocallis Society in 1979 and between 1979 and 2003, 15 of his hybrid selections have been registered. Additionally, he introduced over 50 unregistered cultivars to the industry. This collection displays many of the hybrids he developed over his long career in the landscape industry., A planned gift was made to establish the Jean and Alfred Goldner Endowment in support of the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden