Creating modern hardy hybrid daylillies...
especially for gardens in northern zones!

Daylily: Hotta Pinkie

2022: Be sure and check out clump video below!

2016 AHS HM AWARD WINNER!!! Currently up for AM Award!

This total hottie has been one of the "pinkiest" on the farm since her maiden bloom, and a VERY popular performance plant ever since! It's not just a plain 'ole "hot pink" in the garden... OHHHH no... it's hotta HOTTA pinkie!!! Piercing green throat stands in sharp contrast, for an amazingly "fresh and clean" look. Simply amazing in clump form, with branching/bud count of fantastic proportions. Long story behind the name, that's for sure! The backstory is one many folks know 'bout... but if you've not, it's below. This plant is most DEFINITELY a FUN one! ;-)

May just be the most fertile tetraploid I've ever come up with (note the pod-laden scape photo!), passing on wonderful shades of clear and saturated pink (and STUNNING plant habit) like no other... as with the award-winning "Vicky's Radiance" (Owen, 2010), for mere example!

This plant has sold out every year since introduction, so if you see it's indeed available... GET IT!!!

"Hotta Pinkie" is a bit of a "translational nightmare"... in every way imaginable. It's actually pronounced "hŏt-ta pinkie" (not "hŏdda pinkie", as most like to), and quickly. The story behind it involves a young Asian woman, who was one of the first customers I dealt with as I was managing a garden center in PA back in the early 90's. She was browsing the plants, and appeared a bit frustrated... so I walked up to her, and asked her if I could help her find something. "Ya... I hope so. Whatchoo got in hot-ta pinkie?" came out of her tiny little face... with a sharp, high-pitched tonal sound that this English-American mountain boy wasn't exactly used to hearing. It was definitely amusing though... so with a sincere grin, I asked her to elaborate. "Shooah", she quickly said. "I need someting new in my gahden that's pinkie. Not just 'any' pinkie, but HOT-ta pinkie". Honestly, I was inwardly "ROFL" at this adorable gal's unwitting performance... not just the hilarious butchering of our language, but the fact it was all bursting out of such a tiny little frame. Mustering what decorum I could (in such an unpredictable situation) to actually provide some kind of service, I suddenly realized the only thing "pink" we had blooming at the shop at the time (early May), were some rather old peonies we had potted up the year before. When I showed them to her, she REALLY got annoyed with the whole situation. With hands snapping to her hips, and a tiny face that looked like she'd just bitten into an entire lemon... she exclaimed "no, no, NO! Yoo just DON'T get tit, doo yoo?". With a foot stomping in unison with her super-adjective now, "I said HOT-TA pinkie... HOT-TA, HOT-TA pinkie!!!". I couldn't contain myself beyond that emphatic show of force, and openly laughed out loud at that point. I was sure now - she was indeed the funniest transplant I'd ever met... and I knew I could NEVER forget her, even if not in the way she may have intended. Since I was already hybridizing daylilies at that point... I wrote the "hot-ta pinkie" idea boldly on my "list of potential names" for my introductions, in the hopes I could ONE day come up with a truly searing pink - and name it "Hotta Pinkie". It took more than a decade, but I did it! Another dozen years, and I still have LOTS of very HOT-TA pinkie here - it's an award winning plant now, and one of the most popular I've ever done. To this day however, I've no clue as to who that "little woman with the sharp tongue" was... but she's forever memorialized for her determination to get what she wants, which translated into years of my own effort... to come up with a TRULY "Hotta Pinkie" in my fields, worthy of the name!