Action vs. Spectacle | Daylily Blog

Action = emotional reaction.  something you can see/feel. the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim.

Spectacle = intellectual reaction. no change in tone. a visually striking performance or display. 

Each year thousands upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of new daylily seedlings are bloomed around the world.  I believe "action" determines if these daylilies will be successful and lasting in today's collectors gardens.

Whatever the bloom shows me, it has to spark an internal narrative to prove distinction.  What does it DO?  What does it make me remember, or smell, or see, or even taste?  What emotion does it evoke? Do I inhale abruptly when I see them or do I raise my eyebrows with interest?

There are plenty of beautiful daylilies that are just that.  Beautiful.  

They don't move me; I am simply pleased in passing by their presence in the garden.  If my visit to a garden full of spectacle were reading like a heart monitor, the printout would look "normal."  No high (or low) spikes in emotion. 

I need more than that.

Where are the moments of action in your daylily collection?  

Where are the daylilies that DO something for the onlooker?

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with someone at this event shown here:

This is the 2011 Summer Meeting for AHS Region 2, held in Troy, Michigan.  

We coordinated an off-scape show during the opening day of the event and invited all our travelling guests, and local club members to bring in their blooms.  The result was HUNDREDS of blooms in the hotel hallway that captivated the attention of all our visitors. 

We used ACTION and SPECTACLE to make this a successful event.  The mass display (length and width) of daylilies brought the spectacle.  The spectacle was the "Wow.  That is a boatload of flowers.  Wow."  Some folks cant get past this level of interaction.  That is where they stop.  The spectacle is how we draw new daylily lovers in to the black hole of daylilydom.  

The ACTION came in though the organization of the show.  By displaying flowers by like color and/or form, viewers are able to connect with the display on a more personal level.  They find themselves drawn to highly-saturated blooms, or extra large blooms, or miniature flowers, or heavy-substanced faces...whatever makes their heart sing.  Remember this post?   

There is no better way to determine what type of daylily-lover you are than by attending a daylily show.  On July 6, 2014, there will be an accredited Daylily Exhibition Show in Springfield, Illinois at Washington Park Botanical Gardens.  Mark your calendar right now.  It's the state capitol, tons of stuff to do and totally centrally located by highway from a lot of cities around our region.  More details coming later.  You can also check here for other shows across the country. That page will be updated as shows are officially scheduled for 2014.

Daylily Blog | 5 Deadly Daylily Sins

<posted January 23, 2014>  This is the daylily, H. 'Blonde On The Inside.'  It was created by a hybridizer in South Carolina named Heidi Douglas of Browns Ferry Gardens.  This is a fairly new introduction and has only been in my collection for one full year.  One of the "extras" I love about Heidi's daylilies is dreaming up my own stories about where she gets the names she uses.  

Here we are touring some gardens in southern Ohio last summer.  Heidi is on the far right of the photo (Mandy McMahon from Silver Creek Daylilies is above me and Kimberly McCutcheon of Pretty Petals is on the left of the photo.)

Spring seems so far away looking at our sun kissed faces in this photo.  

Sigh.  These ladies are part of my gardening tribe.  I love them so.

Anyhoo, I assume you are a daylily fan of some sort if you have read this far.  
Your collection expands and contracts like a smooth breath and your winter dreams of dirty adventures in your garden are stirring your cabin fever.

You are crawling the internet looking at new introductions and new sales.  You are checking off your wish list from 2013, and vowing to not add to it in 2014.  
You're getting weak.  Your wallet is getting lighter.  Your dream board for your garden is getting full and the plans get more grand as the snow piles up outside.  Your Pinterest garden-related boards are overflowing with awesomeness.

Although gardening and playing in the dirt is therapeutic and not meant to be stress inducing, it sometimes is for the specialized gardener.  

Burnout happens quickly.  

Resentment creeps in (and so do weeds.)  

You look for the nearest place to hide and what used to be your greatest passion becomes your latest bane.  (I think you could apply this overwhelming sense of "do" to anything really - parenting, scrap-booking, stamp collecting, live-action role-playing....)

Maybe if you keep in mind the following 5 Deadly Daylily Sins (that I just made up) as your cabin fever reaches its' peak, your Spring can start off not feeling so "behind."

1.  Forgetting that daylilies are FUN.   You got into daylilies because you had an emotional reaction to some aspect of them - hybridizing, collecting, photographing, exhibiting, etc.  Ask yourself if you are having fun.  Answer yourself honestly and if your answer is "no," take out a sheet of paper and write some reasons you are not having fun.  Local club politics?  Cost?  Lack of inspiration?  Too much work?

2.  Being unrealistic about your time and space.  As much as you (and I) would like to, you cannot have them all.  There are almost 80,000 registered hybrids and hundreds of people hybridizing for new ones each year.  Not recognizing and accepting your own limitations (personal and spatial) will greatly reduce your fun quotient.  (see sin #1.)  How many can you properly care for?  A collection of 200 well-cared for and well-grown specimens will speak more loudly than 600 struggling fans.  Repeat after me:  "I am not a daylily hoarder.  I am not a daylily hoarder."

3.  Ignoring the BIG PICTURE of your garden. I like Google Earth.  I can zoom in and zoom out using satellite images of our planet.  Here is my neighborhood in Worden, Illinois - a village of just 900.

In my mind, I try to have this birds' eye view of my garden.  And then I zoom in a bit.  And then zoom in a bit more.  And a bit more.  What am I noticing as I get closer?  Are all the plants basically the same height?  Do most of them carry the same "weight?"  Are there differing textures?  Varying planes of sight?  What does the whole say of its pieces?  Is the garden a beautiful sum of its parts, or is it canvas without focus?  If the garden does not have diversity it has to work a bit harder to make your heart sing.  (see sin #1.)

4.  Resisting change.  Change in our bodies, change in our interests, change in our gardening friends, changes in the environment, change in our hearts.  

Your garden is a growing, living tapestry of your life - as it is and as it has been.  If you're frustrated about what your garden IS, do not be afraid to change it.  (see sin #1)

Personal example: I worked hard to sculpt and plant the raised beds in my new garden in Illinois.  See the below pic for one of the island beds.  After a season of visitors and caring for this garden, it was clear that this bed really needed to have a path through it.  For two seasons, I cussed the fact that in order to navigate the garden I had to walk around the large island, but I was resistant to dig out the plants necessary to create the convenience.  

This is the island in mid-June last year.

Finally, last fall in an act of defiance and frustration at other things in my gardening life, I just started digging out the plants to make way for the path. 

Up came clumps of established daylilies, echinacea, sedum, veronica, lamb's ear!  I potted up all but one clump of those daylilies and passed it all on to other gardeners.  It was a big deal, since some of those plants were awesome show-winners and it was a very photogenic planting.  But that is what it was.  And although it didn't really neeeeed to be changed, something nagged at my view every time I saw that area of the garden despite how much I liked the plants in the area.

Long story short - listen to the twinkling garden-fairy voices in your head.  It's liberating to simply accept what the garden WAS, WHAT IT IS and now to allow it to be WHAT IT CAN BE.

5.  Obsessing about the wrong things.  Briefly, anything that does not bring you happiness is the wrong thing.  A really smart lady once said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."  The choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility and if you are choosing to allow envy, gluttony and nasty vibes in your garden, well, you reap what you sow.  This I know.

I hope these little life lessons I've learned in the garden can help you enjoy your garden more.  Sometimes it is hard to love our limitations.  But it sure is more fun when you can take yourself and your garden less seriously and allow yourself to have a bit of fun.

Try it!

Pictures OF something or Pictures ABOUT something... | Daylily Blog

<posted January 9, 2014> This is the daylily H. 'Brookwood Wow.'  I've posted so many pictures of it and talked about it so much over the years I hesitated to use it in today's haiku, but the stark white of its petals reminded me of the blinding polar vortex snow outside.  (polar vortex? Really?!?!)

I saw this above photo in my files and knew I had to use it to talk about a concept I'm exploring in my garden photography.  I've been pondering that there is a distinct difference in taking a picture OF something versus taking a picture ABOUT something.

If I take a picture OF something, its simply documenting its existence in that moment.  

Here is a picture I think is a picture OF the daylily, H. 'Special Candy.'

Now here is a picture that is ABOUT the daylily, H. 'Special Candy.'

Those are two very different photos of the same plant on the same day with the same camera and photographer.  The first photo was taken later in the afternoon; the second one was taken first thing in the morning, while the dew was still undisturbed.  Look how the pollen sacs are still closed tight in the morning and in the afternoon they are full and fluffy.

While the first photo captures the basic details of this daylily, shows its basic shape, coloration and positioning, that's about all it does.  I don't FEEL anything when I look at that first photo.

BUT, when I see the second photo, my eyebrows raise a bit.  The corners of my mouth turn up as my eye follows the deep plum edge and falls into that green throat.  This photo is ABOUT H. 'Special Candy.'

Setting up a photo ABOUT something takes a little practice.  Here are some of my personal thoughts on taking pictures that evoke emotion:

• See the photo through your viewfinder or on your LCD screen as you would be looking at the photo.
• MOVE AROUND when taking the photos.  Crouch.  Bend.  Look up.  Stoop.  Lean.  Repeat.

• Find one focal point when you are setting up the photo.  Move your eye out from that focal point and try to keep out distracting background stuff that takes your eye away from that focal point.  
  
  In this photo above, what do you think my focal point was?  Yep!  The green throat.  
  
  Now look at the top photo. Where is the focal point?  Don't try too hard. There isn't one.  That's part of what makes this top photo just a photo OF H. 'Special Candy' and not really ABOUT it.

Granted, if you are on a garden tour and have about 30 minutes to see 8 acres of gardens, you aren't writing a mental dissertation setting up each photo. 

You're walking and clicking and talking and eating and gasping and clicking. 

You don't have time to think through every shot.  On last years regional tour of 6 gardens, I took almost 600 photos.  That's quick shooting.  You have to get in a rhythm of knowing what kind of picture you want to look at.  FIND A FOCAL POINT before you push that shutter. If nothing speaks to you in the photo as a focal point, why are you taking the photo?

Here are two more examples.  The first photo is a nice shot of the many scapes on the edge of one of my island beds.  Lots of buds, a splash of dark in the middle, but it doesn't really SAY anything.  It's a picture OF scapes.

Now, THIS photo is also of the edge of one of the island beds.  Notice right away the bloom of H. 'God Save The Queen' staring at you from the photo.  

Even if you don't know what H. 'God Save The Queen' is, because I told you it was the focal point of the photo below, you now know for sure!

That photo is ABOUT scapes and the presence of one particular daylily - not just OF a bunch of scapes.

You have to get quick about setting up photos to get the maximum raw image.  This method eats up battery in my camera because I work solely with the LCD screen, but I don't mind.  Most of the shots I take are usable and worthy of keeping since I use a quick mental focus to shoot them.

Photography is one of my favorite facets of my daylily collection.  Capturing intricacies, exposing inherent awesomeness, and creating a library of garden memories for a digital lifetime!

Til next time - 

Get it together, Girl! | And a bonus Haiku...

<posted January 2, 2014>  This is the daylily H. 'Mort Morss' by Jeff Salter

Here's today's tip: You have to keep this obsession under control.

The story is all too familiar.  Tales of collections gone awry, with good intentions now nearing hoard status.  You have plants without tags, plants in pots, plants in your neighbor's driveway....they are everywhere and you are still buying more..smiling on the outside and screaming on the in as you hide the USPS priority boxes that just showed up today.  Again.

This year, I challenge us to focus our collections.  It should be concise and fun to prevent you from overload and burnout.  

BUT HOW DO I DECIDE?  I LOVE THEM ALL.

1.  What are my favorite daylilies in the garden?  Pick about 5.  Do you have others that are similar to these, but not quite as fabulous?  Dig them out, divide and pot up for visitors, surprise gift needs or a plant sale donation. You don't need six gorgeous creamy near-whites with a bubbly edge.  You only need the best representation of that gorgeous creamy near-white with a bubbly edge.  I ultimately decided it was H. 'Boundless Beauty' for me.   You agree?

H. 'Boundless Beauty' introduced by Patrick Stamile

2.  What daylilies have never lived up to the hype (or its internet/catalog representation?)  Bite the bullet and get them out.  Very few low-performing daylilies are worth 2 square feet of garden real estate and I promise you- even the best gardeners cant grow some daylilies "as advertised."  Do not take it personal, forget about how much you spent on it and pot it up.  GET.  IT.  OUT.  It is hard to admit, but I will cull out the daylilies H. 'Blue Desire' and H. 'Time Stopper' and H. 'Bali Watercolor' this year.  I keep hoping for something from them and they have yet to deliver in several seasons.  Gone!

Blue over the lack of blue in my garden in the daylily H. 'Blue Desire.'  Culling this one out.  :(

3.  What large clumps do you have that can be thinned out?  I had a three-year clump of MEXICAN MAGIC in my garden in Michigan.  When we moved in the summer of 2011 and dug up that entire garden, I dug up that clump.   Left undisturbed for three years, a double fan division was now 24 fans.  I cut off about five fans for myself and potted up six other multi-fan divisions and sold them for $20 a piece!  I was able to get top dollar because I potted them in 1 gallon pots, printed a great photo of it for each pot and wrote the registration information in Sharpie on the photo.  My plant sale guests loved the extra touch, and they had a nice photo to keep of the daylily.  No one complained about a $20 daylily!  This is the photo I used.

The point is to make the collection of daylilies you covet as concise as possible.  De-clutter it, if you will.  Even if you have acres of land, an explosion of mediocre daylilies may be adding to your stress and lack of enjoyment in the garden.  

Give yourself a bit of green rejuvenation in 2014 and cull that collection!

Til next time...