Bravo!!!!

Way to go, Melissa!

From my observations over the past few years, a daffodil show is about how to most artfully present one’s blooms. It is certainly about much more than how they looked in the garden. So it is probably best to just accept this as the way the game is played, and learn to play it. Indeed, as with all great art, some of the techniques are known only to a few, and their results show it.

Form and Condition are both influenced substantially by grooming: coronas are made more round, petals are made more co-planar, dirt and stains are removed. Pose is one of the characters most frequently corrected, and even Stem points can be improved by gentle untwisting. Texture is smoothed with a gentle brushing after a warm water bath, or by other means.

It has been a slow process for me to learn these techniques, and one I’ve really only begun. The exhibits by the growers of many years experience do show the value of great grooming, and as you may have seen on Daffnet, the value of having an experienced person’s help can bring an otherwise ordinary bloom to Best in Show status.

In addition, the way that multiple-bloom collections are arranged and displayed plays a significant role in their beauty and thus their favorable impression on the judges.

This shows that despite discussions of DNA or other scientific esoterica, the world of the daffodil fanatic is still one of Art at least as much as Science, and thus standardization is not a goal that will be productively pursued, nor “nature” be exactly what is presented.

Melissa

Melissa Reading, Livermore, CA

At 06:28 AM 4/8/2008,  title= wrote:

Dear All,

I am surprised by the discussion about how best to “keep” daffodils for show purposes. Even though I am new to daffnet and a total novice (not yet interested in showing anything), I would have thought that the question of how to “prepare” flowers for show would be standardized in order to avoid the impression of tampering with nature. If it’s not standardized yet, it ought to be, so as to avoid ever claiming that someone’s flowers had an unfair advantage and so on.

Niels

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Von:
An: Brian S. Duncan <>;  title=
Verschickt: Di., 8. Apr. 2008, 13:39
Thema: Re: [daffnet] Refrigeration

Brian,
 
Refrigeration of daffodils is tricky at best. I cut the stems and give fresh water about every 3 days and it seems to work. I’ve kept them for two weeks, however, the cups on the reds seem to go.
 
Miniatures are a different matter. They don’t do well in refrigeration because even the best refrigerators that are “not frost free” will have some type air circulation. Frost free regrigerators will dry out food that is not covered and will do the same to your daffodils. So use the refrigerators that do not have a frost free feature (Old fashioned refrigerators or new commercial ones.) I have a commercial floral refrigerator with natural humidity that is guaranteed not to dry up the blooms, however, it does on miniatures. I find that I put them in a cardboard box within the refrigerator, they get the cold but don’t get the circulation and have been able to keep them for a week to 10 days.
 
Another issue with refrigeration of miniatures, they often will develop a “white” mold growth that destroys the miniature. I find that the refrigerator has to be sterile and you have to mist the miniatures with sterile water. How do I get the refrigerator sterile one might ask!!! I start each season with a thorough cleaning of my refrigerator with a solutin of bleach. Bleach works wonders.
 
Clay
 

Clay Higgins
 title=
 

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