Hokies have another way to show their school spirit.
A daylily with the orange and maroon school colors of Virginia Tech and bred as part of program to promote Virginia growers is available. Hemerocallis "VT Spirit" is a new introduction and is available for $25 from Brent and Becky's Bulbs in Gloucester.
Veteran daylily grower Linda Pinkham, a Virginia Tech graduate and retired owner of a garden center in Suffolk, helped breed the daylily. She was on the plant selection committee of the Beautiful Gardens program, a project of the Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association to promote Virginia growers.
Pinkham had learned of cross-breeding work being done at a research facility in North Carolina, and so she brought up the idea of doing something similar.
The new daylily is a cross of the daylilies Pumpkin Kid and Pumpkin Prince, plants with different numbers of chromosomes, which normally could not reproduce together, Pinkham said.
Both are good re-bloomers, a trait the breeders wanted in the new daylily.
"Normally what happens if I had crossed those two and had not had assistance of the lab, they would have formed a (seed) pod, but the pod would have aborted," said Pinkham, who majored in horticulture. "I harvested the pod when they were 12 days old, and drove or overnighted them to Danville."
At Danville's Institute for Advanced Learning and Research, plant breeders worked to develop a growing medium that would provide the right stimulation for the pods.
They didn't start out to create a Virginia Tech daylily, Pinkham said. It was presented at shows in 2008.
"We named it by committee. We were doing it online. Some people would say, 'Why are we naming it for Virginia Tech? What about Maryland and U.Va.?' I said when we get one that is blue and orange and green and yellow we will name it for the other schools," Pinkham said.
The plants are being grown in the Urban Horticulture Center at Virginia Tech, said Rick Baker, marketing representative at the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
There will be about 500 to 1,000 of the plants available this year, Baker said.
"We gave two levels of promotion in our Beautiful Gardens program. We have our plants of distinction, plants we feel are underutilized. …This year is our first brand new introduction," Baker said. "We are very excited."
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