Mid-summer Greetings!
I am looking for ideas on the cheap.
I am a member in a local garden club which has joined with another for a Standard Garden Show to be held on August 11-12. The organizer approached me some time ago and asked if I could include “something on daffodils.” I pointed out that there would be no actual plant material from daffs in such a display, but she said that would be fine. I should have strongly demurred, but instead I just grunted assent.
Now the fat’s in the fire and I need to put something together. An 18X24″ poster was the likely suspect. But see below.
The overall theme of the Show is “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”, and the organizers have exploited just about every possible Wizard of Oz reference:
The Horticulture Division is “Toto, Is This Kansas?”, and Section A is “The Lollipop Guild”, Annuals and Tender Perennials Grown for Flowers. There are 12 classes, mercifully unnamed other than “Class 4, Cosmos, 3 stems”, for example. Other sections are “Glinda the Good Witch”, Annuals and Perennials; “The Scarecrow”, Outdoor Container Grown Plants; “The Tinman”, Arboreal Specimens (Trees and Shrubs); “The Flying Monkeys”, Collections of at least 5 varieties of one type. (I’m wondering if they would accept garlic mustard, creeping charlie, buckthorn, and other local invasives as monkeys.) In any case, I feel like “The Cowardly Lion”, though that section is for Indoor Container Grown Plants. Sections in the Design Division are similarly cutely named.
On the last page of the program I received later one finds the Special Exhibits Division and a section called “The Emerald City”, with 3 entries, “Hostas”, “Daffodils”, and “Hydrangeas”.
Daffodils with the theme “Emerald City.” Aha! Piece of cake.
I recently added 4 little sections to the canned talk that I give to garden clubs, I looked there to minimize effort. The sections, under the heading on the first slide of “What’s New in Daffodils?”, are “Better Red than Dead,” ” Hoop Petticoats Are Back in Style”, “Some Beautiful Split Personalities”, and – the one I looked to, “It’s Not Easy Being Green”. It should be easy to use the slides I have, mostly from Daffseek, on green daffodils, splitting between “green eyes”, some of my favorites of all daffodils, and “green elsewhere in the bloom”. A pic of N. Viridifluorus, one of Emerald Empire or Misty Glen, and one of Mesa Verde should do the trick. I could mention that green at the base of the corona or on the back of the perianth is not a good thing for the show bench. (I would leave out the fact that stems are typically green.) With a nicely printed heading such as “Daffodils for the Emerald City”, I should be able to fill a poster board. It won’t be flashy between hostas and hydrangeas, but the charge will be dismissed and the material may even be enlightening to most attendees of a garden show.
But, wait! What’s this I see in the Rules for this division? “1. A minimum of 18 square feet shall be used for each educational exhibit. Space may be horizontal, vertical, or a combination.”
How can I fill 18 square feet? With a 2X3′ blow-up of Bob Spotts? Does anyone have a photo of Manuel Lima? What to do?
I’m glad they left some latitude on how the space could be used but I’m not sure what other options there are. And, could they have meant 18 _cubic_ feet? Lots easier. But the 2007 Revised Edition of The Handbook for Flower Shows gave no relief here. What to do?
Here’s an idea. I’ll ask my friends on Daffnet if they can help. What would you do, having over committed with too little information beforehand and not wishing to sully the reputation of daffodils as a worthy garden competitor, even when the competition is unfairly out of season? What are your favorite daffs with green in them? Any quotable anecdotes, predictions, or tirades I can incorporate? Excellent photos previously shared or not? Pots of bulbs blooming between August 8 and August 14, or so, allowing for shipping both ways?
I’ll be waiting for your advice on just how to fill more space with material on green daffodils. Please forward your contributions before August 1.
Or, just hit the Delete key.
Thanks. George Dorner
Chriss,
This is a description for a bulb I’ve recently named that was sent to me by Bill Pannill labeled as Tribe x407, one of many he sent to me as Tribe something or other. Originally I thought these must be hybrids of Bill Tribe’s that Bill Pannill had in his Martinsville fields. After studying the pedigrees of all these flowers, I noticed that all the crosses involved very typical Pannill choices for parents. I wrote to Mr. Pannill with my suspicions, and learned that they were indeed Pannill crosses—ones that had been growing in the Oregon Trails fields but were later retrieved. I was glad I asked the questions before publishing the following in my 2012 catalog:
Lost and Found
I too miss Daffman.
David Burdick
George, your story is hilarious. You should go on the road. Keep us posted on how this turns out!
George
I just keep picturing a circuitous yellow brick road that leads to the poster in the center….
Debbie in western NC
http://www.momadesignstudio.org/Tim-Burton
Becky Fox Matthews
that daffy girl near Nashville