Yes, she has more to say... | Daylily Blog on Judging Seedlings

Judging  seedlings in an AHS-accredited exhibition show is no easy feat.  As a judge, if you can understand and internalize the fact that judges are basically judging a gardener's child, you are halfway to understanding the delicate nature of judging the seedling section.

According to an official publication of the American Hemerocallis Society, Judging Daylilies, the procedures are fairly clear. However, at three exhibition shows I where I served as a judge in 2010, it seems as though exhibition judges have a long way to go in evaluating this section of the show appropriately and in line with the spirit of AHS guidelines. 

From this handbook -

"In judging seedlings, the primary purpose is to encourage cultivars only if they are different from and superior to registered cultivars already in commerce. When a seedling wins an AHS award, the public has a right to expect it to represent an advancement in hybridizing (page 43.)"

There is no reference to the fact that judges have to LIKE the seedlings presented to them on the show bench.

Here are a few phrases for your consideration:

"Oh, not another yellow."
"I'm really tired of UFO's. Aren't you?"
"Why do people insist on breeding for this chicken fat?"
"What a waste."
"Yuck."
"Now that's just ugly."
"What were they THINKING?"
"I have one in my seedling bed almost like that one, but better."
"Looks just like 'El Desperado.'  Yawn."

Those aren't made up quotes, folks. Those are actual statements, heard by me, during accredited exhibition shows.  Some people won't find anything wrong with what those judges said out loud.  I do.

From a Judge's Education standpoint, I think we are missing the mark in judging seedlings. I think we are missing the spirit of the established procedure, or we are choosing to ignore it altogether.  We have a scale by which to measure the seedlings in the show. The scale is not debate-able.  Here is that scale:

25 points is for DISTINCTION.   My thoughts on "what distinction is or isn't in an exhibition show" can be found here.  According to the earlier referenced handbook,

"...distinction has the utmost priority when judging seedlings. A judge should examine THE WHOLE EXHIBIT for distinction first, then the other qualities individually (page 43.)"

The problem is we are all interpreting the word distinction differently. It is okay that we all have a different vision of what we personally see as distinct. You hone your distinctive eye with experience and money and exposure and miles on your daylily-mobile. Judges are supposed to examine THE WHOLE EXHIBIT for distinction. Not just the face. Not just the scape that may have been cut too short by an inexperienced exhibitor. Not just the fact that the scape is past its peak. THE WHOLE EXHIBIT - which includes, but is certainly not limited to branching, bud count, season, scape height, bud building traits, etc. THE WHOLE EXHIBIT.

After the 25 points for distinction are awarded (and it is permissible for judges to give ZERO points for distinction) then the judges should move on to the rest of the scale. 40 points for the flower itself, 30 points for the scape and only 5 points for condition and grooming. If the judges decide the exhibit loses ALL 25 of the distinction points, it is not possible for it to receive any AHS-sanctioned ribbon, as yellow ribbons must receive 80 points or more.

I think we may be expecting too much in our seedling sections at the exhibition show. I am not supporting awarding mediocrity, but I am supporting encouragement and guidance. Hybridizers do not submit seedlings into the seedling section of an AHS accredited show for the heck of it - I believe they do it to get some constructive criticism from an exhibition judge who has a micro-view of what daylilies on a particular day, shown inside, under artificial conditions can do. Rarely do you see established, well-known, seasoned hybridizers entering the seedling section.  Why do you think that is? 

If you only absorb one thing from this post and my soapbox, let it be this:

I am amazed that entered as a seedling, the daylily exhibit has a difficult scale of points to contend with...but once that seedling is registered and becomes a daylily in commerce - POOF!  It competes only against itself, not every other daylily in commerce as seedlings do, which as we all know, is a much easier situation to win.

Please go back and read that  last bit again.  Let me know what you think.

Judges may be expecting to see the next big breakthrough in daylilies on the show bench. That is not realistic. Those breakthroughs are not going to show up on the show bench and that expectation is setting us all up for failure. Judges will continue to be hesitant on judging seedlings altogether and hybridizers will continue to either not enter them or be frustrated with the lack of guidance and comment from the panel who deemed their exhibit "not worthy" of even a note.

I'd encourage exhibition judges to consider what lens they are using as they are evaluating seedlings. If you are going to not award a ribbon to an exhibit, at least have the courtesy to write a short note as to why you are choosing not to do so. Here are some other things that we might be able to do through the AHS:

Maybe AHS can have special post-it notes printed just for this section, where judges can choose from a list of reasons why this particular exhibit does not merit a ribbon.

Maybe clerks can be trained to write judges comments on the back of the entry tags.

Maybe show chairs and clubs can encourage more hybridizers to enter the seedling section by providing these pages from the AHS handbook so they know by what yardstick they will be evaluated.

Maybe we can have a "Judging Seedlings in an Exhibition Show" forum/seminar at an AHS event.

Certainly we can think of ways to make this section a safe place for hybridizers (big and small) to gather feedback on what some consider their life's work. Everyone should be aware that evaluating a daylily on the show bench and evaluating a daylily in the garden are two completely different animals. If you encounter a daylily that performs superior in both arenas, then you certainly have found a winner.

Wow. This post is certainly a mouthful and I do not want you to get my intentions twisted. I started this thought process after judging three shows in three states in 2010 and encountered VERY different methods (and madness) when judging seedlings. The gap between the shows and styles was too great to ignore.

I do not want to give out Honorable Mentions, or "thank you for showing up" ribbons.

I do not want to coddle or award mediocrity.

I do not want judges to spend nine hours judging the seedling section (as one judge recently pointed out was how long it would take her to look at every entry and judge it with the point scale, which is why she wasn't going to do so.)

I do not want to set anyone up for failure - judges or exhibitors.

I do want the spirit of why we are asked to judge seedlings considered - specifically by exhibition judges. What is that spirit? To give each exhibit its due time with the current scale of points for judging seedlings.

Who disagrees?  

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Gray Day

the gray surrounds me~

steals color from sunny dreams.

leaving slush behind.

Here are two great gray-eyed examples.  On the left, H. 'Out of the Blue' is a tiny sprite of awesomeness.  It does have quite a wispy scape and really dislikes these Michigan winters as much as I do, but I keep it in my collection anyway.  I love the burst of color in the throat and the raspberry penciling on the eyezone.  Like most daylilies in this color range, its best photographed in the morning, as it fades quickly as the sun heats it up.

I have shown the seedling on the right before, but when gray thoughts came over me this morning I had to bring out the photo again.  It is a Bob Faulkner seedling that morphs into a completely different flower by evening.  The eyezone completely bleeds out into the grape-purple petals as the day ages and almost covers the whole surface.  I love watching it throughout the day, bleaching itself in the hot sun.  I miss the hot sun.  Summer, come back soon...

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Filling the frame...

 filled with color!

gardener's eyes soak it in,

saving it for spring.

top left, from back:  H. 'One Last Dance' and H. 'Banana Pepper Spider'

top right from back: H. 'Juanitas Picotee Delight', H. 'Beyond Thunderdome' and H. 'Orange Velvet'

top left: H. Let It Rip'

top right: Lilium (no relation to the daylily at all) 'Suncrest.'

These photos caught my eye while file surfing today.  I love the color riot!  The flowers fill the frame and make the photo go on forever.  Scapes and buds at various stages tell a good story of the longevity of the daylily in the garden.

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Screaming Yellow

explosion in light!

the searing throat screams yellow-

and then softly fades.

(photo is a Dan Bachman seedling.  It blooms like nothing else in my collection.  Its scape is short, which I like and its flowers are big and wispy.  The throat is seriously screaming yellow and the sepals cutesy-curl as seen in the photo consistently.  One day this past summer I counted 12 blooms open on one day.  The best $10 I have spent on a seedling.)

I do write in hearts and flowers- I admit that. Some readers have commented about how annoyingly "perfect" my gardening life seems.  Au contraire, mon frer!  There are a thousand challenges in my brain and in my yard that I just cannot overcome, and most of what I would call "issues" stem from buying into the sterile stereotype of gardening magazines and their ideal representations of what a good gardener does or what a good garden looks like. 

 

At one time I did dream in 4-color glossy magazine style- filling binders with clippings of inspiration for a later day and finding fault in my gardens. I became quietly disappointed that I didn't measure up.  I'm over that now, soooo over it.  I'm okay with my own interpretation of "good."  I am not a perfect gardener. Here are a few points that prove that statement true: 

1. I leave garden tools outside all summer. My hand pruners rust shut and my shovel handles rot. A lot.
2. I do not plant my daylilies at the recommended spacing. And that's okay.
3. I always let volunteer trees that sprout grow. I cant bear to pull them out.
4. I have too many gardening books, magazines and website bookmarks and nowhere near enough land to make any of these ideas a reality. Yet.
5. I buy plants at the nursery or through the mail before I have a spot in which to plant the new purchase. This is bad. The end result of this problem this year was 13 various perennials still in pots when the first snow fell. I hope those "new" purchases make it to Spring when I can hopefully find room for them in the garden.
6. I have ruined more office shoes and office clothes just running out to the garden for "a second." No one goes out into the garden for just a second.
7. I have serious gardening ADD. I can go out to water the containers and go inside three hours later without ever touching a hose. Sigh.
8. I do not soil test. No time for science here.
9. I insist on hand-watering almost every day in the summer. That is bad on so many levels, but I cannot stop doing it. I call it therapy; it really soothes me after a long day at the office.
10. I am an impulse garden art/junque buyer. This gets me into trouble. Just ask the bus I was on during the Long Island national convention, when we ended up at a yard sale in the tour gardens neighborhood and I found a Bryn Maur mirror that I couldn't resist for a wall in my garden. Nevermind I would have to pack, carry and wrestle this ornate 3' X 4' mirror on the three flights home. I needed that mirror. (rest of the story: the mirror broke in a freak accident two years after it made it to Detroit safely, but it looked AWESOME in the garden until it broke...)

The good news is that all these imperfect facts keep gardening FUN for me. My husband yells about the tools, my neighbors and green friends yell about my watering habits, my co-workers laugh at my stained hands and sometimes muddy high heels, my financial planner crabs about the line item called "Nikki's Horticulture Therapy" in our budget, but...it's all perfect to me. 

Daylily Haiku Thursday | Highlights and resolutions...

deep colors, dark glow-

in the blinding white winter,

how i love you so!

photo: H. 'Tuxedo Whiskers' (Shooter, E. 2001)

Another year is behind us. I look back at 2010 and almost lose my breath thinking of everything that was attempted and accomplished in my little part of the green universe.

Here are some stats:

Gardens visited - 24

Miles traveled for daylilies - 3000+

New daylilies added to my collection - 61

Entries posted on "A Girl and Her Garden" - 154

Pictures shot (and kept) - 2165

Presentations given - 17 (in 10 states and 2 countries!)

Spider bites - 1

Spectacular nervous breakdowns - 2

Moments of real joy- countless

There are so many good green memories from 2010.  Two real fun highlights include serving on the Master Panel and being an auctioneer at the AHS National Convention in Georgia. I also recall my whirlwind weekend with the Chicagoland Daylily Society and the tumultuous weather I battled driving to judge the daylily show in Indiana the next day.  That will always be a story I tell from 2010. Riding around Kingwood Center in northern Ohio on that golf cart with Charles Applegate when our tour bus broke down during the regional meeting was one of those moments in which I actually felt myself breathe.  It was magical.  Winning the blue ribbon in the standard flower show for my novice design is the cherry on an otherwise delicious 2010 cake.  I am so thankful for daylily friends who transcend the garden.  We may connect through the dirt of our gardens, but we also stick together for the dirt in our lives.  You are most precious. 

Kimberly McCutcheon naming one of her daylilies H. 'Nikki Schmith' stands as the most humbling happening from the year. If you haven't seen all my photos of it yet, I'll dedicate a whole post to it later this month. I'm not sure she has any left, but you can see it and contact her from here if you are interested.

As 2010 fades into our memories, 2011 is coming into focus. Here are some garden-related resolutions I posted near my potting bench to remind me to level-up as a gardener in this year...

• I resolve not to buy any more daylilies by picture and catalog description alone. 
• I resolve to get plants into pots or ground as soon as possible after purchasing them. 
• I resolve to freely share more daylilies with people who like them. This includes donating more to the local club meetings, regional sales and visitors to the garden. I resolve to do this with reckless abandon.
•  I resolve to have more patience with people who did not learn how to "act right" in kindergarten.
•  I resolve to edit and tag my garden pictures on a weekly basis this summer.
•  I resolve to wield the pruners in a more responsible way. My hydrangea paniculata does not get pruned the same time as other woody bushes. (Who knew?!?) I resolve to learn the difference.

Did you make any gardening resolutions?