Bruce Kovach of Centerpiece Garden

Bruce Kovach retired from his previous job as a personnel manager for The Dow Chemical Company almost seven years ago.  He loves to grow and hybridize daylilies both in Michigan and now in Georgia.  Things are a lot different with the red clay in Georgia vs. the beautiful sandy peat soil in Michigan.  In addition, since starting the move in June of 2008, my son Steve and I have spent hundreds of hours remodeling the interior of the house and since December we have been working on the approximately 1 ½ acre yard, with bulldozers, chippers, chainsaws and my new Kubota we have changed the entire yard.

Bruce and Pat (spouse) are moved to Georgia for a longer growing season but mostly our decision was to be closer to our son and granddaughter “Sydney”.  She is our only grandchild.  We have another son Greg who lives in Chicago.  Our Brittany Spaniel “Brandy” is no longer with us.  We had to put her down last December.  We will miss her.

Bruce & Pat helped start the Central Michigan Daylily Society and Bruce served as President for over 10 years until announcing their move.  He also was a member of the Southern Michigan Daylily Society.  They have joined three daylily clubs in the Atlanta area.  He will begin serving as the president of the Daylily Society of Greater Atlanta in 2011.  Bruce is both an AHS Garden and Exhibition judge and is a member of the doubles paper robin and two email robins.

Bruce loves to breed daylilies, he started working on patterns first, but then decided to focus on what he loved best, doubles, he has produced over 20,000 double seedlings and his focus to this point is to create Northern Hardy Doubles.  He focuses on fully double daylilies with strong plants; he continues to improve his clarity of color, branching and bud counts each and every year.

Bruce became a MASTER GARDENER last year.   He hopes to learn more about how to grow daylilies and other companion plants in this environment with lots of freeze and thaws and many different types of bugs.

Bruce just purchased a greenhouse, but it is not up yet.  All of his crosses have been done in the garden.

You can contact us at 770-815-8921.  1170 Burgess Drive, Suwanee, GA 30024.  centerpiecegardens@yahoo.com

He also wants to give special thanks to Steve Moldovan, Larry Grace and David Kirchoff that gave him valuable insight into hybridizing and finding out what it brings to your life.