The hybridizer we are spotlighting this week is Dr. Robert Carr, M.D.
Dr. Carr graduated from The University of Miami School of Medicine and was a pediatrician who practiced emergency room medicine for many years. He was well known and well respected in his community, and to law enforcement. Bob named the daylily ‘Sherry Lane Carr’ after his wife in 1993. The ATP Database entry for
Sherry Lane Carr shows 113 child plants. Click on the child plants to see the impressive list of many famous daylilies with ‘Sherry Lane Carr’ as a parent.
Lee Pickles of Chattanooga Daylilies and Bob were long time friends and were known for their friendly, joking banter. Bob attended the Mid Winter Symposium for many years, where he presented many scientific talks, as well as doing the slide shows of new introductions and seedlings each year.
I first time I met Bob was at a luncheon held by one of the Ohio daylily clubs. Bob was their guest speaker later that day. There were 10 or 12 of us at the table, and he kept us all laughing the entire meal. His humor even focused on his own seedlings now and then - he once said “I had seen better color and form on the sole of my shoe.“ I met Bob several more times at MWS, and that is one thing I remember about him - his humor. He was one of those people who always had a twinkle in his eye.
I had several conversations with Bob on the phone back then, because I was - and still am - very interested in relief sculpting. I grew many of Bob’s new introductions, and they always grew well here in the north. He had a lot of patience with my list of questions on how to enhance the raised ribbing on the petals. America’s Most Wanted, Sherry Lane Carr, and Wonder Of It All are just a few of the sculpted introductions of Bob’s that are still widely grown and still being used in hybridizing today.
Bob translated his scientific training and knowledge into his daylily hobby in several ways. Bob was already scheduled to be this week’s hybridizer when I noticed a discussion of Bob’s charts on color possibilities and some discussion about them popped up in a thread on crossing for certain colors. There is a link to the charts in the thread, and also some interesting discussion about the charts.
Click here to go to the Thread on Crossing for certain Colors
Dr. Carr was also credited as one of the first people to use frozen daylily pollen. I remember talking to him about how to freeze pollen, and how to use it all those years ago during our phone conversations. As a pediatrician, he must have been knowledgable about the techniques being used in humans and animals to store sperm - and thought why wouldn’t it work for flowers? I don’t know how he came up with the idea, or if he just took someone else’s idea and “ran with it” but I think that really changed hybridizing. No longer did two flowers have to be open the same day to cross them. Not even the same year!
He was very focused and deliberate in his hybridizing, spending a great deal of time planning his crosses in advance. By doing so, the morning pollenating would be done efficiently. The plants he was using for breeding were growing in pots, and he would move them into the shade of a big oak tree to set pods. He was known for his focus being on breeding - not on selling.
Bob was often asked how he selected his seedlings. He had a long list in his mind of certain faults he looked for. If the plant had more than one of these faults, it was not selected unless it was an exceptional breakthrough that he had never seen anywhere before. Some examples of items on that list would be early morning opening, blooming down in the foliage, bad branching, bad proportion of branching.
“Bob Carr’s Daylilies,” as the garden was known, was located in Ocala, Florida and Dr. Carr registered 135 daylilies between 1992 and 2005. Bob was not big on submitting his daylilies for awards, yet America’s Most Wanted, Pearl Harbor, Sherry Lane Carr and Wonder Of It All received Awards of Merit. AM winners must be beautiful, of course, but also distinctive and perform over a wide geographic area. His cultivars also received 27 Honorable Mentions. To win an HM, the cultivar must receive votes from at least 4 regions.
When reading about Bob to write this introduction to his daylilies, I ran across this quote from him, and I think it sums up his feelings about hybridizing.
“If you aren't creating daylily seeds you are missing one of life's greatest joys.”
Bob passed away on Oct. 29, 2007. Lee Pickles wrote Bob’s obituary for the AHS Journal. If you would like to read the obituary, which tells more about Bob than I do here, how he became known as Awesome Bob, see his last website, his color charts, or the famous photo of Awesome Bob with Lee, please go to this page that Lee maintains in Bob’s memory.
http://chattanoogadaylilies.co...
Photos from my garden here in Ohio
America's Most Wanted
Sherry Lane Carr
Never Been Kissed
Engraved Invitation
Key To My Heart
and photos taken at Rice's in KY
Rage of Paris
Storm of the Century
From the ATP Database
