Judy and Bob Bowman, the owners of Wildwood Farms Daylilies, both had a love of gardening and flowers instilled in them from their mothers. Judy had seen and shared daylilies from her mom and sisters, and she, along with her family and Bob, visited local daylily gardens and fell in love with daylilies because of the variety of colors, bloom styles, and ease of care. The Bowmans then traveled to Cherokee, NC, to visit a farm there. As fate would have it, the garden owner they visited wanted to reduce his inventory. The Bowmans obliged him and took home inventory to start their own cultivation.
There began a dream. They started a daylily garden with selections that were both beautiful and stable enough to thrive in Floyd’s climate.
The couple chose to cultivate daylilies partly for their beauty and because they have been a major garden plant since ancient Chinese culture, when Hemerocallis plants were primarily used for medicinal purposes and food from their buds and roots. The plants were mainly used for medicinal purposes until they were brought to Europe in the 1500s. By 1890, most known species of Hemerocallis had been introduced into American gardens. Today’s daylilies were derived from about sixteen original species native to Eurasia.
The history of the daylily plant is fascinating. Its botanical name is Hemerocallis, Greek for “beautiful for a day.” Daylilies are not true lilies, as they are not bulbs but herbaceous perennials. Each bloom only lasts one day but provides many bloom scapes with multiple buds in a “clump.” In 1921, Dr. A.B. Stout was given living plants and seeds of daylilies from China and patiently worked on the hybridization of the species. His contributions to the botany and horticulture of Hemerocallis are many, and the most prestigious yearly award for a daylily variety, “The Stout Medal Award,” is named after him.
Throughout the years, hybridizers have patiently worked with the daylily, developing significant characteristics such as hardiness, resistance to disease, and bloom production, as well as visible traits such as color, form, and texture varieties. The strides made in developing the daylily are truly remarkable! Today, over 80,000 named, registered daylily varieties are available.
Daylilies are hearty, easy plants to incorporate into your garden. They require little care and are not bothered by diseases or insects. The most common pest of daylilies is deer. Like most other landscape plants, deer love every part of the daylily.
After bringing home some of their own inventory, the Bowmans purchased Judy’s stepdad’s & mother’s land to start the farm. Judy and her family are from Patrick County but spent much of their lives in Floyd. George Royal, Judy’s stepdad, and his family were lifelong residents of Floyd. They had land on Black Ridge Rd. and built their house on Rte. 221 in 1953, this property hosts Wildwood Farms to this day. When looking for a name, they saw the name “Wildwood Community” up the hill at the edge of the property; as a family, they decided to adopt the name.
When they started their business, it was quite a challenge to move daylilies from Cherokee, NC, and plant hundreds of rows quickly to be prepared to serve customers for the first time in June 2000. They could not have done it without the help of Judy’s family. Her mom cooked for all of them, and Judy’s sisters, brother, and nieces helped create and plant the raised bed.
The garden started with a tent for their “sales office” and no bathroom facilities for the first couple of years before they moved up to a small office building and a porta-john! For the next five years, the Bowmans increased the planting beds and the number of available varieties each year. It started small, but the Bowmans added new planting areas until there were two acres of beds for field-grown daylilies.
Bob and Judy had to learn a lot on the spot during their first years. One year early on, they experienced a bad summer drought. Judy and her sister, Lou, smelled smoke in the office. They ran outside and saw that the whole bank above the upper driveway was on fire, likely from a car backfire. The fire department came and put out the fire, and they believed that the hundreds of planted daylilies there were dead. Much to their amazement, within two weeks, the green from the daylilies was already peeking out of the ground, and the following year, they bloomed beautifully.
The couple also dabbled with some hybridizing of daylilies. Judy and her niece, Kaitlyn, who worked at the garden from age 12, worked for a few years, crossing varieties and planting seeds. They wanted to create hardy but spectacular varieties. At their peak, Wildwood grew around 1500 varieties of daylilies from hybridizers nationwide, with approximately a hundred varieties on offer. Bob and Judy kept the business open from April through September.
In 2011, Bob and Judy discussed adding a general store to the business. They talked to Judy’s Mom, and she was excited and looking forward to being involved. Judy and her mom were best friends, but unfortunately, Judy’s mom, Ethel, became ill at the beginning of 2012 and passed away in February, while her stepdad, George, passed away three weeks later. The Bowmans were so devastated that they put their general store plans on hold. They finally opened the store on April 13, 2013, to honor Judy’s mom’s birthday, April 8th. The first bloom season after Ethel’s passing was so hard, but Judy knew that Mama was there with her, and she would talk with her as she walked amongst the blooms, as she still does.
What started as a seasonal business became a retail store with live music events and cruise-ins. Marrying a true, working farm with a retail business has been challenging. The Bowmans still work hard on the daylily farm and have the help of Judy’s sisters and brother-in-law, which is a blessing.
Wildwood has had excellent employees over the years who are now like family, even after moving on. For most of the Spring and Summer, the store is open seven days a week, so most farm work occurs during the evening. This means that the Bowmans sometimes have to settle for less-than-perfection. It is a hard lesson, but a good life lesson to look past your weeds and still see the beauty.
The Store consists of home and garden décor, great gifts for all occasions, and a selection of foods, including VA canned jams and jellies. “George’s Kitchen” has been open since 2014 and has a great lunch menu. The Bowmans offer a music venue with regular live music events featured on stage. Despite some interruptions caused by Covid, Wildwood resumes hosting regular bands in the Spring.
The Bowmans also host classic car cruise-ins every 1st and 3rd Sunday from 1-4 pm from April through October. The cruise-ins are a fun way to enjoy the gathering of friends, classic cars, motorcycles, tractors, and any vehicle that you choose to bring. Wildwood Daylilies seeks to be known as the “neighborhood” place to be. Bob and Judy want to keep their events free for the public so everyone has somewhere to go. They do this to express gratitude to all the hard-working, kind, and caring people who make Floyd!
The Bowmans wonder where all the time went. Looking at their future, they know there will be changes, as with any small family business. For now, Bob and Judy are excited about this daylily season and hope to welcome anyone and everyone to celebrate Wildwood Daylillies’ 25th anniversary!