Dave Niswonger

Dave Niswonger is from Cape Girardeau , Missouri.  He received his Bachelor of Science from Southeast Missouri State University with a major in Biology and Chemistry.     A Master of Public Health degree was earned from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , North Carolina.

Dave is a retired Hospital Administrator and used the garden as his stress reliever.  He has belonged to as many as fifteen plant specialty groups.  Besides irises, the plant organizations include dahlias, gladiolus, daylilies, berries with a special interest in gooseberries, vegetables, and nut trees. He has introduced three dahlias, six gladioli (one of which won an All American Award), three hickory nut trees, four Black & Persian walnuts, thirty nine daylilies and over two hundred fifty irises.

He received the Gold Medal from the Men's Garden Clubs of America for Horticultural Achievement.  I Dave has also received the Sir Michael Foster Medal from the British Iris Society for the International promotion of Irises. The American Iris Society has awarded Dave with two Dykes Medals for Everything Plus & Brown Lasso. He shared the award shared with Gene Buckles.  The American Iris Society has also awarded Dave with nine Eric Nies Awards/Medals and numerous other awards.  

Dave began hybridizing tall bearded irises in 1953, median irises a little later, and spuria irises in 1967. A friend, Charles Pickett, gave him a spuria in 1960. It was named Sunny Day. He really wasn't interested in growing it, but since it was a gift, he planted it and didn't give it any particular attention. After growing the spuria in the same spot for six years, he had a clump with sixty bloom stalks. This amazed him. So, he decided that he probably should grow and hybridize spurias. He started with varieties hybridized by Ben Hager, Walker Ferguson, and Marion Walker.

Dave married Marie Deneke, a school teacher, in 1948 and they had three children. David, Mary Dee, and John grew up pulling out weeds and quickly got burned out on the process.  Marie refused to pull weeds, but helped in the planting of seedlings by laying them out in the rows and watering. To the Right is Dave Niswonger with his wife Marie at Knightshayes Court Garden in England - May 1992.

One time when she got to the end of a row, and had a few left, she asked if she could throw the remainder over the fence. Dave nearly had a heart attack and yelled, "that might be my best seedling in the whole bunch"! Now he has five grandchildren that he is trying to introduce them to the art of pulling weeds. He hasn't been successful thus far!

Dave feels that the surface has barely been scratched in the hybridization of spuria irises and hopes that many more will join in the fun of creating new cultivars.

Reprinted with permission from:  Spuria News, Winter 2005

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