Annette Austin was raised on a farm in Springvale, Maine. She went to the University of New Hampshire for a bachelor’s degree in plant science and worked at a greenhouse for some years before the children came. She was a stay at home Mom raising three kids and gardening in her back yard when she put up her own greenhouse and begin selling starter plants and perennials at the local farmer's market. These plants were purchased from wholesale nurseries and auctions that Annie attended. This was just the beginning of her daylily collection! After that, she started to hybridize and collect the seeds from young plants grown under lights in her house.

When Annie retired from selling at the market, she and her husband Frank decided to move all 200 daylily varieties to a field on their property. It took them three years! In the main bed of the field, each row is 300 feet long and four feet apart, with the clumps three feet apart. The entire bed is mulched with sawdust from their son’s sawmill. After every 10 clumps, they put a stake with letters and numbers so they can find any variety at any time.

Annie and Frank fertilize all the plants in the spring and put a black tarp down in the summer to kill grass and weeds before being rototilled. Baby daylily plants are planted in the spring and mulched. Because of the mulching, the beds don’t need to be watered!

Annie now has over 350 named daylily varieties and is an active member of the Southern Maine Daylily Club. She and Frank have three children and five grandchildren. Since she grew up with animals, she also has chickens, rabbits, two cats, and a horse.