<p>______LIDS NEWSLETTER John Stahl, Editor Fall/Winter 2005</p><p>Greetings Long Island Hemaholics. This is the first edition of the LIDS NEWSLETTER in several years. This has been no mean task as there has been a dearth of contributions from the membership. Undaunted, the Editor has decided to forge ahead and produce a holiday edition which will contain (he hopes) items of interest to all. Many of the items have come from the various email robins and some of you will undoubtedly recognize names from the world of daylilydom. So fasten your seat belts (or your life preservers). Here we go!</p><p>POTPOURRI</p><p>From Patsy Cunningham, Reg.4 Zone 6, Rhode Island, on the E-mail Robin-</p><p>“I’ve had to overwinter daylily seedlings in pots, and also newly budded roses. The foolproof way is to mass them all together and cover heavily with compost. They all freeze solid for the winter, none of the alternate freezing and thawing/warming that an individual pot would get, and everything, including the easily killed roses, comes through in the spring. Do put the daylily pots on their sides to prevent icy buildup at their crowns.”</p><p>From Melanie Mason, Reg.4 Zone 4/5, Depending! Saratoga Springs, NY, on the E- Mail Robin-</p><p>“Spring…phooey. We have a couple inches of snow on the ground, it’s 35 deg. and they are predicting rain showers for the next four days. Spring…phooey!!!! Melanie Mason here in Upstate New York, who REALLY wishes she lived somewhere where there are flowers blooming RIGHT NOW! Even a single crocus would be so much appreciated so please do keep talking about your forsythia, tulips, and dogwoods, and daylilies too, all you who live in reasonable areas of the country.”</p><p>From Kathy Krattli Zone 5, O’Fallon, MO on the Email Robin</p><p>“I just finished planting my 2-1/2” bands from Mountain Dew bottles outside in my seedling bed(my new neighbors must be wondering what kind of nut they moved in next -2- to!). Plan to plant my 200+ seedlings tomorrow, hoping it’ll be a bit warmer.(I have a son who drinks a lot of Mountain Dew!). </p><p>2 years ago I had a cut worm chew down one of my seedlings (I only had 3 that year). So last year I used these bands to plant my seeds in. I then discovered how easy it made transplanting the plants as the bands kept all the soil around the roots. But I planted 2 seeds in each band and it was harder getting one plant out without disturbing the roots. So this year I’ll plant only 1 seed in each band. Live and Learn!</p><p>Last year I planted half my seeds inside under lights and the other half outside in March. I had better germination outside and by the end of the summer the outside planted seedlings had caught up in size with the ones planted inside in January.”</p><p>From Chris Peterson Reg.4 Zone 6b, Asharoken, NY-on the E-mail Spider Robin-</p><p>“If I could get out in the garden, I would love to photograph some of the lovely fall companion plants for zone 7. After complaining about the drought and heat and having to drag hoses around all summer just to try to keep things barely alive, I’m now going to complain about all the RAIN! I swore that I would really get my garden in tip top shape this fall. I just ordered bulbs and they’ll need to get planted. All the annuals in containers need to be either dragged indoors or need to be propagated by cuttings. Then there’s the humongous mound of mulch that needs to go on one of the paths in the shade garden, but first I have to uncover the path as it is full of Columbine, Eupatorium ‘Chocolate’ and Periwinkle(among other things too numerous to list)! Of course there’s still about a pallet of stone to move as well. I just hope that we see the sun before winter sets in!”</p><p>From Melanie Vasallo Reg.4 Zone 6b, Huntington, NY-on the Email Spider Robin-</p><p>“Put me down as another nut that saves seeds. Actually, I save seedlings, not the seeds. I let just about anything go to seed and then watch diligently for the seedlings. One of the best surprises in he past few years was this Aruncus athusifolious. </p><p>Aruncus athusifolious is a dwarf goat’s beard. Most people think it’s a dwarf Astilbe but I find it much better than Astilbe. It forms a perfect mound, always looking like somebody used a hedge clipper to make it into a ball. Best of all, the foliage is striking at all times of the year……Two years ago I left the bloom stalks on after they turned brown and last year was rewarded with dozens of seedlings. Last week I moved about six of the seedlings into dry areas and there was no wilt at all. They looked like they had been there -3- forever. </p><p>Besides this beauty, the following perennials/biennials give me much wanted seedlings: Rue, Borage, Digitalis, Salvia lyrata ‘Purple Knockout’ Coreopsis, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Sedum, Euphorbia, Geranimums and more.</p><p>As for annuals, I have poppies, Silene armeria (catchfly), Verbena bonariensis, hardy begonias (blooming like crazy now), Nicotiana sylvestris, Cleome, Verbascum, petunias, impatiens and more. Nothing is more exciting than new seedlings in the garden!”</p><p>From Tommy Maddox- Biloxi MS, On the Daylily Email Robin-</p><p>“….I read often on the robin about someone having a problem with deer in their yard at night. Hello, down here we call that living in paradise. A feller with a freezer full of deer meat and a trailer that don’t leak and a chartreuse shag carpet, a truck paid for, could marry the Home Coming Queen. I know, I married the Home Coming Queen. I will admit I did lie to her about the trailer not leaking. Man, having an over abundance of deer would sure cut down on driving the roads all night, deer hunting. Count your blessings.</p><p>Unusual Forms and Other Oddities—The Plants of Bret Clement By John Stahl</p><p>In his Carmel, Indiana garden Bret Clement has planted 15,000 or more seeds each year over the past several years. He has been hybridizing for about eight years, and his focus is on Unusual Forms, although he hybridizes other forms as well.</p><p>Bret says it isn’t easy to describe an Unusual Form, but he knows one when he sees it. There certainly are definite rules and guidelines for determining whether a flower is an Unusual Form, but I won’t spend time discussing them here. They can be checked by going to the AHS website. Bret concentrates on diploids and has used many plants of Ned Roberts, Bill & Joyce Reinke and Margo Reed for his breeding stock. He also has a Tet program and believes SWIRLING SPIDER is an excellent parent for Tet Unusual Forms. For those of you interested in hardiness, may I remind you that where Bret gardens in Indiana is in Zone 5. Bret grows his seedlings in open field conditions with </p><p>-4- no winter mulch. His plants should be perfect for us in Zones 6b and 7a. He expects that his plants will be hardy under all but the most extreme conditions.</p><p>One of Bret’s first attempts to preregister a seedling was under the name JACOB’S LADDER, but it was not accepted due to the rules in effect at that time which barred the use of the name of another plant as the last name in the name of the daylily. He then thought of naming it LADDER FOR JACOB, but while it performed well in his crowded seedling bed, it did not repeat that performance when he moved it to more spacious quarters. He has another seedling which is out of JAUNTIE JULIE X WILSON SPIDER, a sibling to the original plant, which he will probably introduce in 1006. This plant will be named either JACOB’S LADDER or LADDER FOR JACOB, in honor of Jacob Rund, a nine-year old boy who died of cancer. </p><p>He has five introductions for 2005. They are all outstanding in both color and form and unique in many ways. Three are registered as unusual forms and the other two are narrow forms that are borderline unusual forms, but are not registered as such. These are not just a collection of cookie-cutter daylilies. All are in the purple/lavender family. They are:</p><p>BREATH OF BLUE-30” EM 6” Lavender/purple crispate that reblooms. </p><p>ENIGMA VARIATIONS-34” MLa 8” Purple variable crispate with white watermark and ribs. Its form changes with each succeeding stage of bloom.</p><p>FORENSIC EVIDENCE-32” EM 5” Purple w/lighter edge and complex eye.</p><p>TWO CATS LAUGHING- 44” EM 6” Black/purple w/darker eye. It changes color from morning to afternoon. Bret says you get two daylilies for the price of one!</p><p>LILTING LOLA-50” MLa to La 7” Pinkish/lavender cascade w/slight watermark. It gets its name from its famous parents, LILTING LAVENDER and LOLA BRANHAM, both of which set pods only with difficulty. This was an almost impossible cross, so it represents a relatively untapped gene pool for Bret.</p><p>I was very pleased to receive FORENSIC EVIDENCE as a bonus plant with my order this spring. What I like about it aside from its spectacular color and form is its relatively small size. At 5 inches it is in the minority in the Unusual Form family, many of which are well over 7 to 8 inches. Smaller can definitely be an asset in a field of giants.</p><p>-5-</p><p>In hybridizing for Unusual Forms Bret finds that there are times when the results don’t meet the standards for such forms. These flowers frequently are different however, from what is termed the “bagel”. They fall “between the cracks” as Bret says. Quite a few of the plants are 7 inches or more in diameter and would fit into the new Extra Large Flower class, yet some are different enough to possibly warrant a new class. There are many examples of these in older introductions hybridized before the Unusual Forms rules came into being. Bret likens them to Cinderellas who are deserving of meeting their own special Prince Charming. He and I, along with a number of others who are aficionados of these creations are hoping that through discussions on the various robins enough interest can be generated to persuade the AHS to create a new class for them. </p><p>For 2006 Bret will be offering seven new introductions. Some names are tentative, but here are some details:</p><p>1. Omomuki X Jumble Edge, a 34” x 6” yellow Tet with a form somewhere between a bagel and a narrow form, with lots of knobs and tentacles on the edge. 2. BOOG’S WOOGIE(Hoosier Twister x Later Alligator) is preregistered and is a 31” x 6”maroon diploid pinched crispate, blooms late, has 24 buds, and is a great parent. 3. Jauntie Julie x Wilson Spider will be named either JACOB’S LADDER or LADDER FOR JACOB, and is a 38” x 7-1/2” late blooming diploid lavender quilled crispate, blooming late. 4. Candlestick Park x Lines Of Splendor, 28” x 7” yellow diploid spider with a ratio around 5:1.</p><p>The next three are plants which are not state of the art plants, but will fill a definite niche in the garden and will be introduced at lower prices.</p><p>5. Moonlit Masquerade x Eyes A Blue is a 34” x 5.5” cream with dark purple eye Tet that looks a lot like its pod parent, but blooms early and reblooms so that it was in continuous bloom for two months this past summer and is a good increaser. 6. Challenger x Unknown(possibly Lola Branham) is a 55” x 5” yellow diploid that blooms very late and blooms into September. Its form can be described as a crispate trumpet, but does not mean the UF definition and it increases like a rabbit. It is a bud builder.</p><p>-6-</p><p>7. Stoplight x Later Alligator is a 38” x 5” narrow formed red diploid with beige edges on the sepals and a bud count of about 25. It blooms late and has a lot of blooms open at once giving a splash of color at a time when the garden is starting to look past its peak.</p><p>Keep your eyes and ears open for Bret’s name and wonderful creations. He is a rising star in hemdom. You can see his ’05 introductions at daylilytrader.com, and his ’06 intros will soon be found at the same site.</p><p>Daylilies Are A Local Tradition* By Stan Tylinski</p><p>A pleasant sight in early July is to see Hemerocallis Fulva- the common orange tawny daylily shining along the roadside and in open spaces in the woods. One wonders who planted all those daylilies. Well the fact is that they escaped from old gardens and abandoned homesteads long ago. The orange daylily and its cousin H. Flava (yellow) travel and spread by means of fleshy roots (rhizomes). They travel slowly seeking sunlight, hence a common sight along the road.</p><p>The modern hybrid daylilies form clumps and tend to stay in bounds. H. Flava & Fulva colonize and indeed are now naturalized across the U.S. This perennial colonizer is a relic from our own colonial past, having been brought over from England by early settlers. </p><p>Today the daylily has been hybridized in a bewildering array of colors, shades, ruffles, fragrances, etc. With 1,000’s of registered cultivars, one wonders if there are any names left over for new varieties. The daylily is originally native to China and Japan where it is prized as a table delicacy. The buds and flowers are edible. Dip them in batter and saute’ in butter as you would squash flowers. Choose yellow or orange colored ones as darker colors can be bitter or peppery. Some of the modern hybrid daylilies repeat bloom or bloom extendedly. This is a desired trait as the bloom of the daylily lasts but a day. The daylily STELLA D’ORO (yellow- gold), HAPPY RETURNS (yellow) and ROSEY RETURNS (rose) bloom summer till frost. One called SANDRA ELIZABETH blooms August till September on Long Island.</p><p>-7-</p><p>Check out nurseries for more exotic types. The daylily is almost pest free and drought tolerant when established. Who could ask for anything more from a flowering plant?</p><p>*This article appeared ten years ago in Newsday.</p><p>DAYLILY RESOURCES ONLINE (or everything you never thought you wanted to know about anything) www.tinkersgardens.com/daylilies--- Daylily cultural information, forums, searchable database with photographs. www.lidaylily.org--- Our own Home Sweet Home pages www.ahsregion4.org--- The region 4 mother pages www.daylilies.org/daylilies.html--- The AHS mother of all mother pages www.abacom.com/chacha/gardenHybridC.htm--- An excellent website for viewing the web pages of numerous hybridizers, with photos. Listed by the hybridizer’s name. www.DaylilyTrader.com--- Web site of Region 2 area hybridizers www.daylilycircle.net--- Web addresses for 114 gardens/hybridizers www.happymoose.com--- Garden forums with general discussions, polls, spider and unusual forms, polytepals, doubles, bicolors and bitones. www.mariettagardens.com--- Website for John & Elizabeth Shooter…Contains hundreds of color photos of cultivars, and not just Shooter intros. www.daylily.net/piedmontperennials--- Web pages for the introductions of Margo reed and Jim Murphy----SPUF paradise!</p><p>-8-</p><p> www.roycroftdaylilies.com--- Many color photos of flowers, with an index to aid you in your search. www.photos.yahoo.com/johnny2049--- John Stahl’s photo albums of daylilies and other subjects too numerous to list.</p><p>HELPFUL HINTS FOR DAYLILY CULTURE</p><p>While daylilies are surely some of the hardiest plants known, and which really take very little care, there are some techniques that will enhance their growth. For starters, both Paul Limmer and John Stahl recommend the use of manure in the planting stage. Paul is lucky enough to have the space to obtain, store and use large quantities of fresh manure. John’s limited space forces him to utilize dehydrated manure, easily found in garden centers, available by the bag. </p><p>Another excellent enhancement is the use of alfalfa. John Stahl has used Hu-More Liquid Concentrate, an alfalfa-manure tea for several seasons. This is basically liquid humus plus alfalfa. It contains Triacontanol, an organic root stimulator which is perfect for transplanting. It’s ideal for foliar feeding. Since the company which produces the liquid concentrate has no outlets for their products in this area, and may be difficult to obtain, plain alfalfa can be utilized. Agway in Hicksville, New York carries alfalfa cubes. These compressed cubes, approximately 1-1/4” square, are easily broken up. The resulting fibers are placed on top of the soil after planting a daylily. The substance can also be placed in the hole with the plant, but care should be taken to keep the alfalfa from coming into direct contact with the roots. John uses a thin barrier layer of soil between the roots and the alfalfa fibers. When water is applied, the nutrients from the alfalfa descend into the root system. There are mixed opinions as to methods of fertilizing. It is common knowledge that one can dig a hole, stick a daylily in, throw some soil on top, and the plant will grow. As indicated above, these are tough plants. Some have been known to have survived an entire winter, lying on top of the ground. While daylilies certainly can survive careless or devil-may-care planting, they seem to do better in terms of increase in fans and rebloom if some extra tender loving care is applied. For this type of growth, the recom- -9- mendations of Paul and John (again) are to use Milorganite in late spring, Miracle-Gro during bloom season, and any kind of fall lawn fertilizer in the fall. Wait until the ground warms up before applying Milorganite, as it will be inactive and a waste of money if put out too early.</p><p>********************************************************************************************</p><p>Restaurant Review by The Gastritic Gourmet</p><p>SOLE`- 2752 Oceanside Road(Merle Ave.), Oceanside, NY, 516-764-3218</p><p>This storefront gem is so good that there is always a waiting line unless you arrive before 6 P.M. Even if you have to wait, it’s worth it. It’s an innovative Italian restaurant with a very eclectic menu at quite reasonable prices. Aside from the quality and great quantities of food, all dishes are sensationally presented and served by an excellent staff. Before the meal arrives, you’ll have olives, wonderful breads and two delicious spreads laid out before you. Specials every night include three or four fish dishes and a pasta. A favorite of the reviewer is the balsamic chicken scarpariello. Desserts are outrageous. Very good wines are available by the glass, and all bottles are $20. They accept reservations, but only for parties of six or more. </p><p>EPILOGUE</p><p>Once I got my head together this project wasn’t that difficult. It is hoped that we will be able to garner enough information for a spring issue. By the way, dear members….If you like what I’ve done, tell others. If you’re not pleased with it, tell me. Thanks a bunch(of daylilies, of course!!)</p><p>Ciao, John</p>