We’ll stop when it looks cool. | Daylily Blog on GOING.

<posted June 10, 2013>  Roads trips are a part of my DNA.  My reckless restless spirit loves to run.   Daylilies give me the chance to travel away from places I cherish to places unknown and to people I love.

(photo) This is one view of Daylily World- literally.  The gardens of the incomparable David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss.

As a an only child of young, hippy parents we camped a lot, we went to friends farms for weekend trips and we sometimes spent the night in our own  basement just to have an adventure.  I learned how to read an atlas early and loved the free road maps you could get at the service stations from the stern man who would pump your gas.  My parents and I took random road trips to places like Colorado with no planned agenda.  No Internet.  No GPS.  No Expedia.  Definitely no cell phone.  Just the knowledge that Interstate 70 heads west, hits Colorado and our car takes regular gas - not unleaded.  I made blanket forts in the backseat, never wore a seat belt and my parents puffed Marlboro's from the front seat with the windows barely cracked.  Surprised I survived. Ah, capricious youth.

“We’ll stop when it looks cool.”

Throughout high school I relished debate team overnights, cheerleading events, and far away marching band competitions.  For college I went 1000 miles away to Florida to make some memorable moments that I revisit often.  After college I saw 46 states by car over three summers; those desert sunsets changed me forever.  My husband and I enjoy Mexico often, and we are trying to be less rigid about an agenda, thanks to a happenstance meeting and a perceived Haitian invasion while visiting the Dominican Republic.  Here's two shots of our recent trip to the east side of Mexico...

(Don't worry, the trip was pretty blurry to me, too!)

To kick off daylily season for 2013, I was a guest of the Cobb County Daylily Society and the Daylily Society of Greater Atlanta as a judge for their combined daylily show last weekend.  It was a pleasure to be invited back and they put on quite a show!  Over 300 scapes colored the atrium on the Cobb Galleria and I was thrilled to be a part of it.




The show boasted over 300 scapes and the two clubs did a great job once again of coming together to put on a joint show.  There were five panels of three judges, and I was honored to judge with Dr. Scott Elliott (who is producing some of the best-scaped doubles I have EVER seen) and my sweet friend Rosemary Dixon.  We had great discussions, many laughs and enjoyed our time together.  I also got to meet Scott's charming wife and got to kid around with Joann Stewart, who I don't see often enough.


Here are two exhibits of Heidi Douglas' H. 'Papa Goose.'  First time Ive seen it exhibited!

I was most impressed by the color shown on the section winners.  Often, darker color flowers are harder to exhibit and you don't see head tables that are so "dark."  This was impressive.  I was also thrilled to see two Region 2 cultivars among the highest winners in this deep south show.  Jamie Gossard's introduction (large photo below) was stunning.  Love this one, Jamie - it has amazing masculine structure and is so intentionally white.  

Here are the winning faces from the head table at this show. 

(H.'Santa's Little Helper' and H. 'Blooming Beauty')

(H.'Free Wheelin'' and H. 'Everybody Loves Earnest')

(H.'Hats off to Sue' and the seedling winner from Bill Waldrop)

The height, branching and bud count on the winning seedling was spectacular (above, right).  I can only hope Bill Waldrop chooses to introduce that one.  I thought of some possible names for it on the flight home - finally settling on one inspired by a recent culinary adventure, "Pickled Blackberry Sorbet."   Maybe Bill will see this suggestion and consider adding it to his expanding line of sorbet-named daylilies.  LOL!

(H.'Virgil's Suspenders' and H. 'Grapesicle')

(H.'Brookwood Ojo Poco' and the head table of all winners)

The adventures I have travelling the country participating in gardening symposiums, daylily exhibition shows and daylily-centric garden tours are priceless.  My garden itself is becoming a living history of what I’ve seen and where I’ve been.  It’s like that for most romantic gardeners, I hear.  

H. 'Heavenly Snow White', hybridized by Jamie Gossard and expertly exhibited by Bill Waldrop.  This one has little purple highlights on the buds and bracts.  Very interesting!

So now I’m the parent of son who has an app to identify every constellation in the sky at the tip of his fingers; a boy who can ask Siri how far away Jupiter is from his location at any given moment.  One night when my husband was out of town I took our sleeping bags and pillows out on the back deck, where the view of the stars takes my breath away every night.  My son and I laid on our backs and used our SkyView apps to find all the planets (yes, Pluto is still a planet in my book) and even saw some satellites.  

He loves going.  Living.  Certainly his mother's son.

Thanks for another soul-feeding trip, Atlanta.  I always look forward to the next time I can run to you.

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