Suzanne Eck excels at daylily business, Pondside Gardens

Suzanne Eck is not satisfied with growing flowers. She creates new flowers.

Her laboratory is her backyard in Woodstock. There, she grows daylilies, allium, lunaria, phlox and hosta. Once a year, she holds a “garden dig” and sells clumps of these and other plants for transplanting. But what makes Suzanne’s garden really special is that there are flowers there you will not see anywhere else.

Suzanne came to love gardening early in life. Her parents owned a lot and a half with their two-flat in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. Some of Suzanne’s earliest memories are of wandering between her mother’s peonies and prize rose of Sharon while still in diapers.

Her path began at age 16 in the typing pool at Stewart-Warner Corp. She was able to buy her own house at 18, and from there, moved in stages farther from the city until she and her husband, Ron, bought their home in McHenry County.

Wherever she went, however, home meant house and garden, and in her their last move she transplanted an entire 13-year-old garden to her new yard. That garden was the start of the Eck’s farmette, named Pondside because of its location near Duflield Pond Conservation Area in Woodstock.

Although Suzanne also sells plants, dried flowers, bouquets and wreaths from her garden, her main focus is selling seeds internationally. People around the globe collect different types of daylilies from other countries. Selling plants internationally is very expensive and involves getting a Phyto certificate. Many nations have bans on plants coming into their country from another, but seeds are widely accepted for international sale. Since they are less expensive and easy to transport, there is a large market for them, and the Internet has made it possible to advertise all over the globe.

Serious collectors want new and unusual varieties. Suzanne creates hybrids by cross breeding – manually taking the pollen from one Daylily and transferring it to another plant. It takes two months before the pod of the newly bred plant can be harvested and then three years of careful nurture before you can see what has come from the cross breeding.

Suzanne keeps her seeds refrigerated over the winter. When it comes time to ship the package, she packs them well and sends them first class through the U.S. Post Office. Just as people need passports, special forms and tags are needed for a new variety of seed to enter another country.

The record for the most expensive daylily was recently broken at an auction in Lake Tahoe when a customer paid $7,500 for one daylily pod.

New plants are named by their creator. A friend of Suzanne from Ipswich, Mass., sent her a new variety of daylily to test in her garden. Suzanne gave it an A+ rating, and in 2013, her friend will put this daylily pod up for sale. She plans to name it “Suzanne Eck.” What a nice legacy.

Of her own creations, one of Suzanne’s favorites is a daylily named “Delicately Yours,” which has a showy white blossom highlighted with a swoosh of color as though reflecting a rainbow.

Pondside Gardens has a large array of lilies in multiple colors and shapes, and Suzanne makes sure the habitat is perfect for them. She goes organic and has all the blooms that attract hummingbirds, bees, Monarch and Swallowtail butterflies.

Eck’s life is busy with gardening, selling, judging daylily shows and being a Master Gardener. But in addition to caring for her garden, Eck enters Quinn, her Imaal Irish Terrier, in dog shows around the country. His breed is considered vulnerable because there are fewer than 5,000 in existence. This year in Monroe, Mich., Quinn took the blue ribbon for best puppy. You usually will find them both at the Woodstock farmers market, where Quinn is the unofficial mascot.

For information about buying daylilies or taking advantage of Suzanne’s yearly garden dig, email her at pondsidegardens@yahoo.com.

You may wonder about that handsome animal pictured with Suzanne.  His name is Quinn and he is a Glen of Imaal Irish Terrier. His breed is considered vulnerable because there are less than 5000 in existence. It is a dwarf breed with a mix of Irish Wolfhound and a variety of Terriers sometimes referred to as "the big dog on little legs." Besides being the mascot of the Woodstock Farmer's Market, Quinn travels the country with his master representing his breed at dog shows. This year in Monroe, Michigan, he took the blue ribbon for best puppy. 
Suzanne's life is full and busy between, gardening, selling, judging daylily shows, being a Master Gardener and showing her dog, Quinn.

• Sue Neuschel shares her experiences as a Baby Boomer, offers unique places to visit in and around McHenry County. She can be reached at sueneuschel@att.net.