By Kathy Scurlock, COHS Display Garden Chair
The Display Garden of the Central Oklahoma Hemerocallis Society (COHS) is in Will Rogers
Park, a historical city park in the Oklahoma City limits, which is also where our club’s meetings,
Spring and Fall plant sales and AHS Flower shows take place. The park is named, of course, for
the famous Oklahoman, Will Rogers, who was a vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous
social commentator who died with Wiley Post in a plane crash in 1935. You will have about an
hour to an hour and a half here to view the daylily area, the other garden areas, and the
arboretum, which has a nice walkway. Lunch will be served here as well.
The park is in the central northwest area of Oklahoma City two miles north of our state
fairgrounds. The planning of this park took place in 1909, twenty years after the city was
founded during the April 22, 1889 land run. The 1909 plan was to have a “Grand Boulevard”
several miles from downtown encircling the city with four major parks at the four
“corners”. This park became the one at the northwest corner of the city. The land was set aside,
but development of the park did not actually begin until the 1930s. Plans were made with the
Oklahoma City Parks Department and National Park Service, and the Civilian Conservation
Corps and Works Progress Administration were employed for its construction. Together, they
dammed two creeks and created a naturalistic landscape of small lakes, rolling hills, red rock
picnic shelters, an amphitheater and large garden areas. A swimming pool and disk golf area
were added in later years.
Our club was established in 1958 and our Daylily Display Garden was established within the
park in 1975. As members recall, the areas we have occupied within the park have changed
somewhat through the years. Our current location is a prominent area just south of the Ed Lycan
Conservatory with short red rock walls and a new gray flagstone pathway.
The original conservatory was inspired by 19 th century glass enclosed greenhouse architecture
and was erected in 1924 in the original fair state park which was about a mile east of the
downtown area. In 1936, it was moved to its current location in Will Rogers Park. In 2013, it was
torn down and completely rebuilt almost exactly like the original, but with more modern
ventilation and climate control. It is home to a collection of cacti and succulents and is now a
venue for weddings and public events.
The largest garden area in the park with the circular fountain and beautiful statue was a stately
rose garden for many years. With the coming of the rose blight several years ago, the park
converted that area into a mixed annual and perennial “Gardens of Color” showcase.
 In 2017, the parks department and our club worked together to design and purchase two signs
for either end of our garden that identify our plants as daylilies and credit our club for their
donation and care.
I have been the display garden chair of our club since 2014. I was relatively new to the club, but
not new to gardening and I lived nearby and had enjoyed the gardens and picnic areas at Will
Rogers Park since I was a kid. Our club decided to reorganize the plants in 2015 into five
separated areas (Large and Extra-large, Minis and Smalls, Spiders and UFs, Doubles and plants
hybridized by Region 11 hybridizers). This was a big job and many of our members participated.
We were able to keep them all straight as they were moved, which isn’t easy, … as you all
know…they all look alike!  The number of plants has now grown to over 325 daylilies and we
have a large number of plants from Region 11 hybridizers. Bloom season there is truly
spectacular and enjoyed by the public.
​Since the garden is in a public space and the park does the watering and some maintenance, it is
a cooperative effort. In the last several years the garden, as well as the whole park, has had
increasing trouble with nut sedge. An application of “Image” in the heat of June 2018 by the park
resulted in a loss of nearly one quarter of our plants, even though the iris garden nearby was not
adversely affected. With the help from the park, hard work and generous donations from our club
members, the COHS Display Garden has fully recovered and is still a lovely area we all are
proud of.
Our club had a hardworking and loyal member in the past, Peggy Estes, who bought plants and
tended to our Display Garden for nearly 30 years! She lived nearby and contributed so much to
the garden. One of our members, Hooker Nichols of Dallas, Texas even named a registered
daylily in her honor in 2010. This cultivar is currently growing in this garden.