Darrel Apps’s daylily ‘Peanut Butter Frenzy’ wins AHS’s prestigious Award of Merit

In late 2025, daylily hybridizer Dr. Darrel Apps earned the Award of Merit from the American Hemerocallis Society (AHS) for his daylily ‘Peanut Butter Frenzy’. ‘Peanut Butter Frenzy’ was hybridized in the mid-1990s and registered in 1999. This is the third time Apps has won the Award of Merit. Apps won the Award of Merit for ‘Sugar Cookie’ in 1989, and the widely-grown and available ‘Pardon Me’ in 1982.
Dr. Darrel Apps died in May 2025. His hybridizing career spanned nearly six decades. Dr. Apps was a career horticulturist who held three degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Apps has named and introduced nearly 480 registered daylily cultivars, He received the coveted Bertrand Farr Silver Medal hybridizing award from the AHS in 2006.
When Darrel Apps retired in 2007 to Wild Rose, WI, he focused his hybridizing on dormant foliage, early bloom, and rebloom. These characteristics are particularly suited for the colder parts of the country. Graziano Gardens became involved with displaying and marketing Apps registrations in 2014. Graziano Gardens is continuing to evaluate the last of the seedlings from Dr. Apps’s hybridizing program.
Last year was Graziano Gardens’ last year as an independent retail garden center.
In 2026, local customers and those wishing to pick up orders placed online will be able to visit Graziano Gardens three days during peak bloom: July 17, 18, and 19. Those wishing to visit the grounds which are an AHS National Daylily Display Garden, should check the Graziano Gardens Facebook page for information on their limited hours. Apps daylilies are available online at GrazianoGardensLLC.org.

Available for local customers will be a selection of Apps’s best registrations, some Grazililies, and a limited assortment of perennials well-suited as companion plants for daylilies. One of Dr. Apps’s wishes was that his daylilies be made available to local gardeners. Grazililies are a more affordable option compared to his registrations which are highly sought after by other hybridizers and daylily collectors nationwide. Grazililies are seedlings from the Darrel Apps hybridizing program which are not up to Darrel Apps’s high standards for registration, but are great daylilies with many of those same characteristics.
As an American Hemerocallis Society (AHS) National Daylily Display Garden, Graziano Gardens has nearly 700 different registered daylilies and seedlings planted expansively in the landscaped borders. The borders also contain a wide selection of award-winning daylilies from other nationally recognized hybridizers and daylilies from App’s hybridizing work in New Jersey. Graziano Gardens is located at W3280 Akron Ct., Pine River.
For daylily fanatics, if it’s July, a visit to the National Daylily Display Garden at Graziano Gardens is a must-see!