| Program 1113 |  |
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For more information:
Producer: Carolyn Gwinn |
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Flowery Sentiments Pinecliffe Gardens If the Queen of England is among your regular customers, you must be doing something right. At Pinecliffe Gardens in Daviess County, what they do is daylilies and hostas—in hundreds of varieties. This family-run farm specializes in developing new varieties of these flowers and shipping the plants all over the country and the world. Owners Michelle and Jeff Jones share a passion for gardening, and the business allows them to work at something they love while providing opportunities for family togetherness. The Joneses bought Pinecliffe Gardens from founders Don and Kathy Smith, who started hybridizing daylilies as a hobby at their home in Floyds Knobs, IN in the late 1960s. As they started sharing some of their favorite results with fellow enthusiasts, word started to spread (eventually even reaching the ears of the Queen), and soon their home flower garden was also a profitable business. Don Smith, who has named new daylily varieties for Louisville gardening legend Fred Wiche and former Victory Garden host Roger Swain, among others, continues to be an enthusiastic hybridizer. Jeff and Michelle relocated the business end of things to their home near Philpot. The grounds include a five-acre American Horticultural Society display garden, which can be toured between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm (CT) Friday or Saturday, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm on Sunday, or at other times by appointment. |
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For more information:
Producer, editor: Tom Bickel |
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Hand Thrown Bybee Pottery Our second family business for this edition reaches back to Kentucky’s frontier days, and its products are among the state’s best-loved craft items. Bybee Pottery, a small company located in a very small town in eastern Madison County, inspires the kind of brand-name loyalty any giant corporation would envy. Whenever a new batch of the distinctively colored hand-made bowls, pitchers, vases, and assorted other housewares is ready, customers line up at the door to snatch them up, usually within hours. Walter Cornelison, the fifth-generation owner of Bybee Pottery, isn’t even sure himself how old the company is. Official sales records and his own family’s involvement go back to 1845, but other references indicate that the pottery may have been operating (although with less formal record keeping) as early as 1809. What is known is that the Bybee pots begin with clay dug from the same deposits early settlers mined, and that the entire process, from mixing to grinding to hand-throwing and -trimming, has changed very little in more than a century. Kentucky Life previously visited Bybee Pottery in Program 704. This visit, taped a few years later, finds the now 75-plus Walter still hard at work creating his sought-after wares. We also meet two members of the sixth generation, Buzz and Jimmy Cornelison. |
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For more information:
Producer, editor: Jim Piston |
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Training Camp Camp Nelson Camp Nelson, south of Nicholasville in Jessamine County, is normally a peaceful military cemetery where heroes of past conflicts rest amid rolling hills. But those hills periodically come alive with the sounds of simulated battle as modern-day reenactors relive a different chapter of its history. During the Civil War, Camp Nelson was a supply depot and training camp for the Union. In particular, it served as an important recruitment and training center for African-American volunteers after President Lincoln issued the call for them. In this two-part visit to the camp, we first meet some of those reenactors as they participate in a commemoration of the arrival of the first black troops at Camp Nelson. Their comments give insight into their motivations for re-creating history as well as their passion for tradition and accuracy. Then we talk with Randy Hulsey of Bowling Green, who is carrying on a family tradition of his own by working as a tinsmith. He demonstrates his craft while creating some items that would have been vital to a 19th-century soldier. Like the Bybee Pottery tour, these segments also represent a return visit for Kentucky Life. You’ll find more about the history of Camp Nelson in Program 112. |
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