The University of Kentucky Research and Education Center (UKREC) at Princeton is proudly celebrating 100 years of advancing agricultural extension, research, education, leadership and service to the Commonwealth. Founded in 1925, UKREC is part of the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, as well as the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station and the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. A vital part of the Princeton community, UKREC’s impact extends across Kentucky and beyond. To mark this milestone, Martin-Gatton CAFE will host a variety of events and training sessions throughout the year, showcasing UKREC’s legacy of excellence and ongoing commitment to UK’s mission of improving lives through teaching, research and extension. 

PRINCETON, Ky. – Daylily cultivars that flourished for decades, survived a tornado, and crossed the Commonwealth are now waiting to bloom.  

Over the last 40 years, personnel at the University of Kentucky Research and Education Center (UKREC) at Princeton built up the collection of 120 daylily varieties. Though the collection survived the 2021 tornado damage, the daylilies had to be cleared in 2024 to make way for a new greenhouse.  

“We wanted to find a good home for them,” said Carrie Knott, UKREC managing director.  

The UKREC staff succeeded, donating daylily cultivars to The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky in Lexington, to UK Robinson Center in Breathitt County and to Master Gardeners in the region.  

“I am an eternal optimist that is always looking for the silver lining,” Knott said. “I am so inspired by how these plants persevered through the storm and now can provide such beauty for others.” 

Building the collection 

What would become a large collection in the UKREC Botanical Garden began small in the 1980s. 

Winston Dunwell started as a UKREC extension professor in 1979. His, and UKREC’s, first daylily connection was Mitchell Leichhardt, owner of Leichhardt Landscape Company in Bowling Green. Leichhardt hybridized and introduced daylilies, and he started the UKREC collection with annual donations.  

Originally, the daylilies were part of the UKREC landscaping, then were moved into “more manageable rows” in the horticulture research plots, according to Dunwell. As the collection continued to grow, Dunwell focused on collecting daylilies of Kentucky breeders. 

Darrel Apps was a significant supplier of daylilies for UKREC. By that time, Apps worked at Longwood Gardens, but his interest in daylilies began during a previous role as state specialist in ornamental horticulture at UK.  

While living in Lexington, Apps realized how well daylilies grew “in the hot summers of Lexington,” according to his online bio. 

For UKREC’s collection, Dunwell acquired Apps’ Happy Returns cultivar, which Dunwell described as “a very pretty true yellow.”

The UKREC collection also included daylily cultivars from Schott Gardens in Bowling Green; Daylily World in Lawrenceburg; breeders John Rice, Joe Swanson and Jack Roberson; and the Middle Tennessee Daylily Society annual plant pass-along.  

Though the plants survived the tornado, Dunwell’s blue notebook that included where, when and from whom he got the plants was lost in the damage. Much early information about daylilies doesn’t exist online, which made those records “all the more valuable,” Dunwell said. Thankfully, though, the plants themselves will continue to be enjoyed and studied.  

"I was thrilled to learn the UK Arboretum would take the collection, preserving cultivars that may no longer be available anywhere else,” Dunwell said.  

‘A great show’ at the UK Arboretum 

In 2019, a one-acre section of the rose garden at the Arboretum, which is operated by UK in partnership with the City of Lexington, became the Perennial Teaching Garden.  

In 2020, Arboretum grounds staff planted more than 2,000 perennials in the garden. In 2022, the Bluegrass Iris Society needed a new site for a display, so irises filled the outer hoop beds of the garden.  

“This left one section blank, with the hope of one day adding a daylily collection,” said Jesse Dahl, grounds and facilities superintendent. “Daylily collections are extensive and can take decades to acquire, so we waited.”  

In 2024, Dahl heard that the UKREC daylily collection needed a new home.  

“We jumped on the opportunity,” he said.  

Last summer, Dahl traveled to Princeton and worked with Dunwell and other UKREC staff to dig up and label two plants each of 120 varieties. Dahl drove the plants back across the state to the Arboretum, where they were planted in the Perennial Teaching Garden.  

Despite the drought, the plants established well, and a few even bloomed during their first growing season at the Arboretum. Dahl said it will take a year or two before the daylilies reach their peak.  

“Next year should be a great show,” he said.  

'Giving and sharing’ at UK Robinson Center 

Forty-four varieties of daylilies traveled from west to east and are now planted at the UK Robinson Center in Quicksand, which was heavily impacted by the July 2022 flooding in Eastern Kentucky.  

The varieties, which include Milano Maraschino, Janice Wendell, Octavian Orchid, Milano Violet Mark and Milano Rocket, are currently planted in one of the Robinson Center’s farm plot locations.  

Daniel Wilson, director of Robinson Center, said the daylilies will be transplanted in the spring to showcase them at other locations across the farm. 

Like UKREC, the Robinson Center has been rebuilding after a natural disaster while continuing to serve its community.  

Knott said it was particularly special to her that UKREC could share the daylilies with the Robinson Center.  

“I am so glad that we were able to help with the Robinson Center’s recovery, even though it is such a minor contribution,” Knott said. “Despite a very terrible catastrophe, beauty can persevere and be shared.” 

UK’s “giving and sharing mindset” strengthens the university’s impact across the state, Wilson said.  

“The University of Kentucky with its land grant mission has such a fingerprint across the state,” he said. “Even though we are a large university, we can be together when we work cooperatively.” 

Learn more about the UK Research and Education Center at Princeton at https://wkrec.ca.uky.edu/. Learn more about the UK Arboretum at https://arboretum.ca.uky.edu/. Learn more about the Robinson Center at https://robinson-center.ca.uky.edu/.  

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Writer: Bailey Vandiver, bailey.vandiver@uky.edu 

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