Tech Topics - Fall 2007 - (Page 14)

LivingHistory CAROLINE JOE Erling Grovenstein, Chem 44, has been growing and hybridizing daylilies for nearly 50 years. He and his wife open their garden to visitors each summer to share the incredible colors. Retired Chemistry Professor Now Shares Daylily Knowledge By Nicole Branan I f you take a stroll past Erling Grovenstein’s house in the summertime, you’ll realize right away what he is passionate about. Hundreds of vibrantly colored daylilies adorn his spacious garden in the Atlanta suburbs. What is not immediately obvious is that many of the plants are his and his wife Lillian’s very own creations. Working tirelessly in their garden every day, the couple have been creating new varieties of the popular summer flowers for decades. “On average we introduce about one or two new hybrids every year,” Grovenstein said. It’s been nearly half a century since the retired Georgia Tech chemistry professor first became interested in experimenting with daylilies. “I needed to find a use for my nearly one-acre garden surrounding my new house,” Grovenstein said. He began to work with roses but they turned out to be difficult to manage, he remembered. “Someone suggested I try daylilies and I did.” He has been hooked ever since and today Grovenstein is a household name in the community of daylily breeders. Many of the couple’s creations are available for sale and for almost a decade, Grovenstein wrote a regular column in the Daylily Journal, answering readers’ questions about the flowers. Grovenstein’s passion for hybridizing daylilies is closely tied to his passion for chemistry. What attracted him to the subject when he first arrived as a freshman at Georgia Tech in 1941 were the beautiful bright colors of some organic chemicals. “It’s those organic compounds that give a flower its color and what really fascinates me about daylilies are their intense colors,” he said. Thanks to hybridizers such as Grovenstein the color range of daylilies 14 TECHTOPICS | FALL 2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Tech Topics - Fall 2007

Contents Mail Call Alumni House Historic Renovation 007 Buzz Bash Dazzling Daylilies Living History Cover Story: Key to the City The Hill Tapping Technology Robotics Rivalry No Easy Ride Giving Back Balancing Act Student Life Burdell & Friends Epic Story of Heroism Yellow Jackets Very Good Team Passport to Retirement Real World

Tech Topics - Fall 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.