Daylily E-News from AHS

Volume 2 No. 1

March 2009

Greetings!

WELCOME TO DAYLILY E-NEWS, a free electronic newsletter brought to you by the American Hemerocallis Society, also known as AHS. Daylily E-News is for all who share an interest in daylilies, including members of the American Hemerocallis Society and other horticultural organizations, educators, garden writers, news media, and others who love to garden.

Thanks to all those who submitted items for this issue!

Daylily growers across the country are poised for spring. Winter has been unusually cold and snowy in many areas, and Minnesota--my state--has been no exception. Our daylily friends in North Dakota have just had another blizzard, and snowstorms continue to sweep along the Rocky Mountains from Montana to Texas. We are looking for welcome signs of spring wherever we can!

For members in the warmer states, gardening season has already begun in earnest. The first daylilies are blooming in Florida and Texas, so it's time for the rest of us to sharpen our trowels and get ready to spring into action!

Be sure to see the update about registering for the 2009 AHS National Convention. Plan to join us for a fun weekend! Also in this issue, some of our AHS members share seasonal updates about their gardens. Read their stories in "Daylily Gardens in March." See the sidebar for other topics in this issue of E-News.

If you are not yet a Daylily E-News subscriber, sign up via the link at the AHS website, or send an email to Daylily E-News Editor and ask to be added to the Daylily E-News email list.

For much more about daylilies and daylily events, visit the AHS website (see QUICK LINKS). A comprehensive Site Map is available on the site.

Another QUICK LINK will take you to Charlotte's Daylily Diary, where you will find access to daylily images, hybridizer websites, and a slide show of the Garden of the Week. You are sure to enjoy a visit to her information-packed site.

You may unsubscribe from Daylily E-News at any time by clicking on SafeUnsubscribe, which you will find in each issue.

We hope you enjoy Daylily E-News!

Happy daylily dreams!
Kathy Lamb
AHS Publicity and Media Relations Chair

Banner photo: Hemerocallis 'Insignia' (Morss 2003); ; photo by Kathy Lamb. Sidebar photos are from the 2008 AHS National Convention in Houston, Texas; photos by Kathy Lamb.

Our sponsor for this issue of E-News is Daylily World. Thank you for your support!

Hemerocallis 'Barbara Watts' (Kirchhoff, D. 2008)

Please join us for
"Daylily Splendor in the Bluegrass!"
Peak bloom is June 20-July 20.

You are invited to our annual Daylily Gala, July 11, 2009, at Chris & Sandy Swayze's Daylily Garden and Thoroughbred horse & Angus cattle farm. Co-hosts are Daylily World, Thoroughbred Daylilies, and Pamela Spencer. Please join us for great food, fun, and door prizes. For maps and more information, visit www.SplendorInTheBluegrass.com.

1301 Gilberts Creek Road · Lawrenceburg KY 40342 · Phone: 407.416.9119

Email: hybridizer@aol.com
Website: www.daylilyworld.com

AHS Announcements

CONVENTION NEWS

The late registration fee for the 2009 AHS National Convention has been cancelled! You may now register beyond March 15 and pay the early registration fee.

2009 AHS National Convention-May 20-24, 2009

"Daylilies in Paradise"

Lake Mary, Florida

Hosted by AHS Region 12 and the Sunbelt Daylily Chapter

Registration Bonus: As a special thank you to all Convention registrants that will be joining in the festivities, each will receive either a Fall 2008 or Spring 2009 daylily introduction from Frank Smith Daylilies! The value of this gift is like attending the convention for free.

Join the fun! See terrific gardens, meet old friends, and make lots of new ones.

For a registration form, see the spring Daylily Journal, or go to

2009 AHS Convention Registration

For convention details and a preview of gardens, go to
2009 AHS National Convention

If you have never attended an AHS National Convention, be prepared for a whirlwind of activity. AHS member BJ Crighton shares a few pointers:

NATIONALS FOR NEWCOMERS
by BJ Crighton, Silver Spring, Maryland

From the AHS email robin. Used with permission.

National Conventions are really more about people than education... National Conventions have two full days of touring gardens. That leaves a couple of hours each afternoon for all the other meetings, each in a separate room: Scientific Forum, Robin get-together, workshops, clinics, boutique browsing, etc. Usually the two things you would most like to attend are scheduled at the same time.

And, to add to the difficulty of making choices, this period is between the time your bus finally gets back to the hotel--with you all hot and sticky, dying for a shower and clean clothes--and the social time before dinner. (If that sentence leaves you breathless, you are starting to understand how you will feel on Friday and Saturday afternoons at Convention.) But it is great fun...

Nationals have so many participants that you may not get to see all the people you know. Be sure to look at name tags, because you will see, and possibly meet, the most famous people in the daylily world.

You will spend two days on the same bus, so you will get to know those people. Buses usually travel in pairs. You can chat with those on the other bus when you are in the gardens.

Don't make the mistake of sticking with a few people from home. This is your chance to broaden your horizons. After your first convention or two, you'll get over feeling hesitant about introducing yourself to strangers.

At daylily meetings, remember that strangers are only friends you have not met yet.

Order your new AHS Membership Brochures today!

Each year AHS publishes a membership brochure featuring beautiful new photos of the year's daylily award winners. Daylily clubs can order up to 100 brochures free of charge and pay only for shipping. Others can order 100 brochures for $12.00 (US funds; shipping within the USA included).

Other AHS publications are also available. A favorite for new daylily growers is An Illustrated Guide to Daylilies for only $10.00 (US funds; shipping within the USA included). Visit the AHS Publications webpage for more information or contact:

American Hemerocallis Society
c/o Jimmy Jordan
276 Caldwell Drive
Jackson TN 38301
731-422-2208
AHS Publications Manager

Make all checks payable to the American Hemerocallis Society. U.S. orders are postage paid. International orders are welcome, but please remit U.S. funds and include additional postage to cover shipping.

Not yet a member of AHS? Join today and receive a valuable daylily voucher!

AHS membership includes the fabulous quarterly Daylily Journal-jam-packed with informative articles and colorful photos-plus a regional newsletter at no additional cost.

If you join AHS as a new member before September 2009, you will receive a voucher worth $25 or more to use with a participating daylily vendor.

This popular program debuted in 2007, and vendors have agreed to continue for 2009. Current AHS members who upgrade their membership to a higher level will also qualify for a voucher.

Vendors may require a minimum purchase, and some vendors may offer a voucher of higher value than others. Members must pay shipping (and phyto certificates where applicable). A minimum purchase may apply.

A member may receive a voucher one time only. Upon receipt of your membership application, the AHS Executive Secretary will send you a voucher along with a list of participating vendors.

See details at AHS Membership or use the Quick Link.

Join AHS today and discover the exciting world of daylilies!

News for AHS Youth

March is the month for applications for the Christine Erin Stamile Youth Award and the AHS Bertie Ferris Scholarship. Submissions are due to AHS Youth Chair Betty Roberts by March 31, 2009.

Send submissions to:

Betty Roberts, AHS Youth Chair
9055 Melbourne Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80920-7713

If you have questions, please contact Betty Roberts at 719.282.9642 or by email: youth@daylilies.org.

For more information about Youth awards, go to the AHS Youth Page at AHS Youth Webpage

Daylily registration -- what's it all about?

Have you ever wondered where daylily names come from? Or why breeders register their daylilies with AHS? What about the AHS Check List of Hemerocallis Cultivar Registrations--what is that?

After a new daylily hybrid is selected for introduction, the American Hemerocallis Society (AHS) encourages the originator to officially register the new variety.

Registration of cultivar names is a voluntary international system used in the horticultural world to keep track of plant names in order to avoid confusion in commerce. For example, when consumers purchase Hemerocallis 'Strawberry Candy' from their local garden center, they expect it to look like the daylily they have seen in photos or in other gardens. Registration with AHS helps make this happen.

In 1955, the International Society for Horticultural Science appointed AHS as the International Registration Authority for Hemerocallis. AHS follows certain guidelines so that daylily registrations meet requirements for the naming of cultivated plants to ensure worldwide uniformity.

The originator of a new daylily cultivar selects a daylily name in accordance with registration rules. Each daylily name must be unique! If a daylily name has already been used, another name must be selected.

With over 62,000 registered daylilies, you might wonder how originators continue to find new names--but they do! Daylily names can be very creative, and many daylily names have interesting stories behind them. But that is a topic for another day...

After the AHS Registrar receives the daylily registration application, she reviews it for international compliance and works with the AHS Registration Committee for final approval, notifying the originator of the outcome. Each year, all new daylily cultivar registrations for that year are compiled and published in the Hemerocallis Cultivar Registration Check List, completing the official registration process.

Daylily registration does not mean that AHS in any way recommends the new daylily, nor does AHS warrant that the registration is accurate. The originator is responsible for accuracy in registration information. However, AHS has developed an Awards and Honors system to recognize outstanding daylily cultivars.

You can see the rules of registration for yourself on the AHS webpage, "How to Register a Daylily" at Daylily Registration.

AHS has taken daylily registration a further step by providing an online daylily cultivar database. Access to the database is free to members and the general public. Anyone with Internet access can check to see if a daylily name is already in use. Gardeners can see if the daylily they purchased is officially registered and if their newly acquired daylily matches the description in the registration. For AHS accredited daylily shows, it is essential to know if a daylily is officially registered. Breeders may also use the database for research purposes.

See the following article by Rebecca Board about the latest enhancements to the Online Daylily Database.

Enhancements to the
Online Daylily Database

by AHS Registration and Technology Chair Rebecca Board

Over the last couple months, we've been working on enhancements to the online daylily database. I hope you enjoy these new features and will find answers to most of your questions here. Of course, please direct other questions you may have to me and I'll do my best.

The latest version of the cultivar database was loaded onto the webserver on March 7, 2009. It includes all the information from 2008 and all registrations that were completed as of March 7, 2009.

The search page now indicates at the bottom the date on which the database was last uploaded. I hope to start doing these uploads once a month, and perhaps more often in time.

There have been problems with users adding extra spaces in the cultivar names, causing searches to fail. The search will now ignore extra spaces.

A large batch of images have been processed and were recently added to the site. (More images from 2008 are still being prepared. Please be patient as Gretchen works on these during the quiet periods when registration requests are slower.)

The parentage search has been completed and was added to the advanced search page.

Registrations for cultivars that have not yet been published in a paper checklist are now returned and indicate the hybridizer and registration year. Please read below for more details on this feature.

For as long as there has been an on-line database, I can recall people asking to have access to the current year registrations. Sometimes the request came from buyers who wanted to ensure that the plants they were buying had really been registered, and sometimes from hybridizers who wanted to avoid requesting names that were already taken since this slows down the registration process.

We took a close look at the ICNCP* rules to see if we could find a compromise between these requests and the rules for establishing a name. We finally decided that we could print the names and hybridizers for these cultivars in the same way that we do for reserved names, but that we could not publish the descriptions until the printed Annual Check List is available early in the following year.

The Publications and Registrations Committees have been working together to get the 2008 Annual Check List ready. I want to especially thank Brenda Macy for all the work she has put into this. As soon as distribution of the printed Annual Check List has begun, I will remove the prohibition on printing the details for 2008 registrations, but the details for 2009 cultivars will still be withheld. The most important thing is to realize that the hybridizers have completed the registration process and the name has been approved pending final review.

Our rules remind that errors may occur. The Registration Committee reserves the right to review all reserved and registered names prior to publication of the Annual Check List. If an error is found which would be in conflict with the registration rules, the hybridizer will be informed and asked to make a name change prior to publication. The occurrence of a name change in conjunction with this review is very rare, but is possible.

We must abide by the international rule that states a name is not officially registered until it appears in a printed and distributed form. For this reason, we need to identify new registrations differently than previous registrations. Electronic lists are not recognized as establishing that a name is officially registered. Publication of our Annual Check List meets the ICNCP requirement.

This "feature" had been available but un-announced for a few weeks, but the notation I first used to explain these registered but unpublished cultivars caused a great deal of confusion. I have changed the wording of the comment on these recently registered cultivars to "details withheld until publication in 2009/2010." The publication year is always one year greater than the registration year, because it takes through the end of the registration year to get the last of the in-process cultivars approved in cases where the first name is rejected or some information is determined to be incomplete, then it takes time to layout and publish the data. I hope we can streamline this in the future to get this out earlier, but it is unlikely that the Annual Check List will be printed by the end of the year.

Gretchen and I are now working on documenting the existing registration process and posting this information on the website. We hope that this first step in making the process more transparent will allow hybridizers to be more appreciative of the work involved and to have more reasonable expectations for how long it will take to get approval. I'll let you know when this step is completed.

Take a look at the AHS Online Cultivar Database:

http://www.daylilies.org/DaylilyDB/

Ask the Ombudsman

Donna Peck is the Ombudsman for the American Hemerocallis Society. An Ombudsman "is an independent, neutral party who is able to look at problems that come up in an unbiased fashion." The Ombudsman also answers questions about society rules and procedures. In this series of columns, she will answer a question that may benefit not only the member who had the concern but others as well. If you have a problem, question or situation with which you need help, contact Donna at AHS Ombudsman.

QUESTION: I heard that one of the daylily clubs included a photography exhibit at their flower show. I am the chairman of our flower show for next year and would like to include photography. I've looked in the judges' manual under show rules and schedules and I don't see any information about including photography. Do you know what the other club did that I can also do?

RESPONSE: One of the clubs you are referring to might be my club, The Albuquerque Daylily Society. And I think other clubs are now including photography also. We have had numerous requests about this issue, so I'm glad to be able to answer it. We started the photography division about four years ago when our chairman, Connie Elmore, included this for our members who enjoyed taking photographs of daylilies. And she believed that the visitors who came to the show also would be interested. It has proven a great success. We started with about six photographs the first year to twenty-nine last year. And for a small club like ours, we were very pleased. We have a professional photographer judge the photographs. After the judging last year, the judge held a half hour seminar evaluating the photographs and answering questions. Our members and visitors learned a great deal which will help them with their entries next year.

The photography awards are called "local awards." If you look in the rules about the Show Schedule in the Judges Manual, there is a section called Local Awards and Rules. Even though the club can give local awards for the best photographs, they are not AHS awards.

In our show schedule, printed for our members, we titled it Daylily Photographs, Division V. Under that Division V the rules are:

A Daylily or Daylily related photograph. Any 5"x7" or 8"x10" black and white or color print. The print must be matted. The outside dimensions of the mat must be 11"x14." Exhibitors are limited to two photographs in each class. Photographs are to be displayed on easels. [Our club supplies black plastic easels.]
Class A. Single Flower
Class B. Clump of Growing Daylilies
Next year we will include Class C, which will be titled Landscape.

This information must be in the club's show schedule that you submit for approval
to the Exhibition Judge Chairman, Gisela Meckstroth, AHS Flower Shows.
If you add this local award to your flower show, I'm sure your members will enjoy it.

AHS Science Committee Update
by Patricia Loveland, Chair, Scientific Studies Committee

Hemerocallis Gall Midge
At the AHS October 2008 board meeting, a research proposal from the Royal Horticultural Society to investigate control measures for Hemerocallis gall midge was approved and has been funded. Principal investigator Andrew Halstead will study three insecticides available for use in the UK. The proposal states: "Bifenthrin (Bayer Sprayday Greenfly Killer Plus) is a pyrethroid insecticide with contact action; imidacloprid (Bayer Provado Ultimate Bug Killer)* and acetamiprid (Scotts Bug Clear Ultra) are neonicotinoid systemic insecticides that may control the larvae inside the buds. These three insecticides are approved for spraying on outdoor ornamental garden plants in the UK but have no specific recommendations for use [on] Hemerocallis or gall midge pests." [*Bayer has recently changed the active ingredient in Provado Ultimate Bug Killer to Thiacloprid, an agent in the same chemical family as imidacloprid.]

The Hemerocallis gall midge (Contarinia quinquenotata), according to the AHS Daylily Dictionary, http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_dictionary/gallmidge.html, is a fly that has been a pest of daylilies in Europe for many years. It was known to be present in British Columbia, Canada, by 1998 and was formally identified in 2001. In 2008, it was reported to have migrated into the northern part of the State of Washington in the United States. For more information about the gall midge, consult the Daylily Dictionary. There are currently no pesticides that are labeled for use on this pest.
[Editor's Note: Daylily E-News will feature an article about Hemerocallis gall midge in an upcoming issue.)

Old Daylily Form has a New Name
The daylily form that has been called "polytepalous" is now to be known as "polymerous". The reasoning is that the latter conforms better with current botanical terminology. A polymerous daylily has more than the usual three petals and sepals in their respective whorls. For more information, see the entry in the daylily dictionary at http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_dictionary/polymerous.html.

The Scientific Studies Committee has recently made additions and modifications to the on-line daylily dictionary to reflect this change. In The Daylily Journal, "polymerous" will henceforth be used, and other AHS publications will be modified as they are updated.

The Daylily Garden in March
Compiled by Kathy Lamb, Daylily E-News Editor

I asked some of my AHS Publicity Committee and other AHS members from several areas to tell us about their daylily gardens during the month of March. Here are their comments about garden chores, fertilizing practices, weed prevention, and a few other tips.

[Editor's note: Any mention of brand name products is for informational purposes only and is not an endorsement by the American Hemerocallis Society.]

Chris Petersen gardens on Long Island in New York. Her photographs have appeared in The Daylily Journal.

The Helleborus foetidus, or stinking hellebores, and the Italian arum are the only plants showing off in early March. Once we have some warmer weather, the early bulbs start to appear. The primroses and the Oriental hellebores will bloom in March, as will some of the shrubs such as Sarococca hookeriana whose blooms are fragrant but barely visible!

Helleborus foetidus

Helleborus x hybridus; photo by Chris Petersen

I only attempt some garden clean up (dead perennials and annuals) when some green begins to appear in the garden! It's a good time to do this as the rake shreds the new growth of daylily foliage and bulbs if I wait too long. This year I have the additional chore of removing the piles of gravel that the snowplow deposited on my beds adjacent to the driveway! I'll also have to hunt for the plant markers that the plow relocated or destroyed!

I don't have any routine fertilizing schedule. I'll throw some Milorganite and pelleted chicken manure on as many beds as I can.

I sometimes use Preen [pre-emergent] on beds that have a lot of self-seeding perennials. It needs to go down early, before the forsythia bloom.

*****

Mary Baker of Omaha NE is busy with tax season during March and early April, so most of her garden work must wait until late April.

In late March, the daffodils bloom, and I enjoy them because I can see the ones in my front yard under the flood lights when I leave for work and return (it's dark both times). It's a rare treat to see the ones in the back yard-that only happens if the paths are dry enough to walk on (two-dimensional slope) and it's Sunday (and I typically also work on Sundays during the last four weeks of tax season).

I don't fertilize in spring.

I apply Preen (the regular kind) as a pre-emergent during the first week in May and during mid-summer, except for the flower beds where I'm growing things like zinnias and dill from seed.

It's probably about April 20 or so before my gardening begins to begin, and that's when I clean up the dead stuff I couldn't get to because of tax season (everything lags behind). I got lucky this year and got most of the front yard cleaned up, but that isn't saying much because there's a lot more in the back yard. I look forward to it-even yard clean up outside is better than not being outside at all :-)))

Repeated Round-Up applications in the paths starting in late summer successfully knocked back nasty areas of bindweed after a couple of years. Persistence is the key.

*****

Bobbie Brooks reports from Gloucester, Massachusetts, north of Boston. Bobbie is a landscape designer who installs and maintains gardens for clients.

For sure each March is different... this year being a snow year. We had more than twice the normal snow for the season and we got another six inches on March 9th! Being north of Boston 'on the ocean' makes it a LATER spring than inland.

Depending on the year, spring can come in late March or sometimes a little earlier. This year on March 10th, it was still winter with snow on the ground.

We call March the MUD SEASON!
The ground needs to thaw. Areas that warm up the soil faster are in sun, on higher ground, in raised beds, and near granite stone walls. Snow and frozen ground areas are lower in the valley. The brook runs quickly from the melting frozen ground and snows.

Crocus appears anywhere from March 10th next to the granite wall high area some years to mid-April in colder areas of the garden.

I have an approximately an acre of display gardens. All gardens are cleaned late fall. As soon any tree leaf debris left over is dried, it is lightly raked out of the gardens. Gardens are also hand cleaned around perennials and inside shrubs.

Mid-March begins the shrub-trimming season for winter kill, broken branches, and shape maintenance. The latter needs to be done BEFORE new growth starts. Suckers are trimmed off apple trees, lilacs, etc., and fall/winter/spring brush is burned.

Workstations are set up. Tables, pots, tools. Garden supplies are purchased.

March chores:

Push the tags of the named daylilies back into the ground after their frost heaves of winter.
Check the charts.
Start to clean around the plants any old foliage and debris.
Upright the pots of daylilies that were leaned over for the winter.
Spread a thick layer of peatmoss over the germination bed to prepare for spring seeds.
Make tags for the crosses.
Clean tools.
Take pictures.

Fertilizing/feeding:
Topdressing of formal daylily beds is done in the late fall after cleanup and early spring when the material is available. It is easier to topdress before plants start to grow. I use pure compost purchased by the yard. We usually do about 4 yards each year on a rotation basis. Topdressing is about 1-2 inches. Love it when it snows after this is done. Spring snow has more nitrogen available...it's called the farmer's snow!

NO pre-emergent used!

Exercise:
March is also the time for getting the body back into garden-work shape! This includes walking one to two miles each day, bending and stretching exercises, and three-pound arm-weight lifting.

*****

Brenda Macy, AHS Region 10 Director, gardens in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

In March, my garden is really ratty looking: dead foliage, the scapes I didn't get pulled out, overgrown edges on the beds, and weeds coming up everywhere!

March 2009, will be somewhat different from other years as I have the damage to my pine tree from the 27 January ice storm with which to deal. There is a goodly portion of it laying around on the north and west sides of my property. I usually start pulling/digging the weeds out in March. I leave cleaning up the foliage and edging the beds until later, as we could have a killing frost on up into April.

I like to fertilize in the spring. I usually get a high nitrogen lawn fertilizer (WITHOUT crabgrass prevention), place it in my handheld broadcast spreader, and walk the yard. I usually do this right before a heavy rain storm is predicted so that nature will water it in. Quick, easy, and cheap!

While I would prefer not to use a pre-emergent, I do find it necessary to help control dandelions (all my neighbors seem to love the way dandelions look in their yards!). I usually try to apply it around the same time as I fertilize.

A dormant daylily emerging in spring; photo by Kathy Lamb.

*****

Pat Loveland, AHS Region 8 Director, Corvallis, Oregon, sent her report:

Plants are all waking up. Hellebores are blooming. Evergreen daylilies are starting to recover from our unusually harsh winter, and dormant daylilies are emerging

In March, I finish clean-up work that has been going on most of the winter! Now is an important time to bait for slugs. Later this month I will apply fertilizer.

I fertilize in the spring. In the garden, I mostly use organic fertilizer-mostly alfalfa meal with a little bone meal.

I never use pre-emergent weed treatment in my garden beds! Sometimes I use pre-emergent on certain paths. I rely on bark mulch and hand weeding to control weeds.

*****

Maureen Strong, AHS International Membership Chair gardens in Stoney Creek, Ontario (Canada) and shares her March garden report:

In March, the garden is still totally dormant, frozen.

I check the potted daylilies in the hoophouse (cold frame) for voles and mice that may have made their way inside. If the wax bait chunks are nibbled, and potting media is piled between the pots, that means there is a rodent in the vicinity.

I topdress with well rotted horse manure. I use no pre-emergent.

We have to wait until April to really begin gardening here.

*****

Conclusion: As of the first official day of spring, we heard reports of first DAYLILY blooms in Florida and Texas. The rest will follow. Let the daylily season begin!

Left: Helleborus x hybridus; Right: Helleborus foetidus; photos by Chris Petersen

The American Hemerocallis Society, Inc., is a non-profit corporation organized exclusively for educational and scientific purposes, and especially to promote, encourage, and foster the development and improvement of the genus Hemerocallis and public interest therein.