Hart Garden
Lois & Bill Hart Garden
7460 W 255th
Louisburg, KS
Lois and Bill sell antiques at a local mall as their hobby and Lois operates a stained glass business. She does custom glasswork and sells at a couple craft shows every year. Bill is not a gardener, but he is a member of two Garden Railroad clubs!
A MoKan club member and AHS member since 1994, Lois has served as treasurer for the Mokan club and is currently co-vice-president. She is also a member of the Topeka daylily club, and holds the office of Region 11 Treasurer. She helps to coordinate the Internet auctions, held spring and fall, which is the primary fund raising event for Region 11. She is a big fan of the Region 11 winter gatherings, having attended each of them. She finds that they are a great way to meet other club members. She hosts an open house nearly every year for the local community to learn about daylilies. She is president of the Late Bloomers Garden Club in Louisburg, KS and donates daylilies to the Garden Club during its fundraising events.
It’s no surprise then, that this very active couple should have a lovely large garden. Lois and Bill live on 40 wooded acres just south of Overland Park, Kansas. When they built their home in 1992, Lois’ boss advised her to buy some daylilies, since they were low maintenance. She ordered a few pink and apricot daylilies from Gilbert Wild in 1993. As soon as they bloomed, she immediately ordered red and purple ones to mix in, because she thought the pastels were too boring!
Lois had about 100 varieties when she met Betty Coughenour from the Mokan club while on a wild flower walk. Betty invited Lois to the upcoming club show - and that was the beginning of the obsession for Lois. The next month she was at the club sale buying grocery bags full of daylilies. She added a couple more beds and started buying from all the wonderful catalogs that arrived after joining AHS. By the end of 1995 she was up to 300 varieties. The last flowerbed was added in late 2008 and the “last chance” and “need another home” plants were moved to that area. She now has just over 900 varieties.” Lois also has quite a large selection of shade plants, perennials, hostas and lilium.
Lois is expanding the shade plantings in her wooded areas. She first tried naturalizing some of the daylilies along her creek and a berm, but the lack of water and fertilizer helped them do a disappearing act. Now she is content to leave shade plants in the shade and daylilies closer to the sunny areas.
Lois confesses, “I consider myself a collector, as I do not hybridize. I really like the various forms and have over 130 doubles and 150 spider & Uf’s. I probably only have a couple miniatures and very few small flowers. I like to buy the plants that win the AHS awards if I think they will survive in Kansas. I also add plants from the popularity polls in Zone 5 regions. I am partial to the purples and reds but those big gaudy orange and yellows sure are nice, too.”