Ack! Someone thinks I'm an expert! No no NO LOLOL. I consider myself a newish newbie still, and I am a TOTAL sucker for a pretty face! Seriously though, thank you for the very kind words, but I really don't consider myself to be all that knowledgeable yet. But what I do is get lots of catalogs and spend WAY TOO MUCH time looking at hybridizers' and sellers' web sites....I belong to several lists....I enjoy visiting gardens, love being able to see tour gardens during conventions, regional meetings, etc.....I've gone to the same AHS display garden several million times at this point, and I always see something new or learn something new about the plants, or I see old, familiar faces in a new light....I've taken a garden judges and exhibition judges clinic....I belong to AHS and to two local clubs, and I entered my very first daylily show this summer (what a blast that was!)....I have catalogs, price lists and newsletters from the latest going back years....I have a near-complete set of AHS journals....I have TONS AND TONS of images saved, with text files of the posters' accompanying comments on the daylilies, on daylily culture and etc etc etc....the hybridizers with whom I'm not at least semi-familiar? Probably just a handful of local ones here or there throughout the country. IOW, there are SO MANY ways for everyone to learn and pick up useful info. So you can pick and choose what seems right for you at the time. (IMO everyone should at least consider joining AHS and at least one local club....I think the cost is trivial relative to what you can conceivably get out of it.) But despite all that, IMHO the REAL experts and knowledgeable people here are floota, shive, and others like them, who are long-time daylily growers who have or have had substantial daylily collections (compared to my really rather smallish one) and who know so much more than I do.... still, I do feel pleased that you enjoy some of my comments. :)))

"I have yet to see a plant that I would consider important enough to buy a whole collection for. I really find the concept to be like blackmail. John Benz is probably still laughing and I would hope he would send a nice bonus or 2 along with that plant." Except that, number one, I would imagine that some people, maybe most people for all I know, buy collections because they like/want a sufficient number of the offerings such that, by paying each plant's individual price, they would have to pay a high proportion of the collection price to get them all. And thus, the extra amount, whether $200 or $300 or however much, gets them what they want plus all the remaining plants. Number two, sure, there may be others who buy collections basically because they want that one special plant or special plants. They can afford it, so I assume, so why not? It might seem crazy to you or to me, but perhaps we're not them. I know somebody who has a painting by one of the very-top-tier, is-at-the-Louvre-and-the-Met, everybody's-heard-the-artist's-name French Impressionists hanging in the entrance hall to one of his houses. I'm going to assume that if he wanted to buy a daylily collection in order to own just one of the plants, he probably could do so. :) Number three, there are people in the south who can buy collections, grow the increase, and (try to) unload the whole shebang as a way of getting the plants they perceive as the best of the bunch + recouping most of the initial purchase price. Number four, there are people in the north with greenhouses who can buy collections, grow the increase, etc etc etc. I don't find the idea of collection-only to be remotely like blackmail. This is, in the end, capitalism at work. Someone has a product and others want it. The seller is offering the product at a price he or she believes the market will bear. If the price is too high and no or only a few collections sell, then the seller is "stuck" with a bunch of daylilies that must be sold individually, very possibly in multiple future years, possibly laboriously and with great effort. That effort (time + labor + marketing resources etc) could have been used dealing with the newest plants and future hybridizing efforts, not to mention there is capital tied up in those unsold plants. Maybe John Benz is laughing, but more power to him. The daylily was his creation, and he apparantly has done a pretty good job of assessing its desirability. So my question to you all is: why would he, as a rationale seller, ask for less than what the market is telling him it's worth? This isn't to say that I like the idea of collection-only and super-high-priced daylilies. Like I said before, there's an awful lot of great stuff out there that is way out of my budget. By the time I can get around to adding those plants to my collection, I often don't want them because there's now better stuff out there! Which of course, is once again out of my budget. Ad infinitum, apparently. :)

Hi Everyone!!!!!!!!!!! ok, I just set a personal record, I have managed to get here to the forum 2 times in 3 days, wow!!! (grins) Hope everyone had a lovely Easter that was filled with love, laughter, family and friends. Karen, I meant to say how sorry I was to hear about both your kids and your medicine ball.(and you with the horse) And to apologise for laughing so hard when I read it. I know it isn't funny, but I just couldn't help myself, you made it sound hysterically funny the way you wrote it. Guess I have a warped sense of humor. But, I am very glad all of you are ok now. hugs. Dawn, No, I never got it. Did you get my change of e-mail? Debbie has the new one in the latest member list. hugs Dianne, I am so sorry to hear that. But, on the bright side, now you will have a lovely new kitchen. So, keep your chin up and focus on that. Wish we lived closer, I have gained lots of weight since my mom passed, and I have decided this is the year I am going to lose it again.If we lived closer, we could walk together. Also sorry to hear about your DH. Your hubby and mine must be related. Gene got his finger with the table saw late last summer. Doc said he exploded the bone in the tip of his finger (index, left hand)And, yes you might have to hire someone to watch him. I have often felt that way myself. They somehow manage to get into all kinds of trouble when we aren't around. What is that all about anyways? We have so got to get together this summer. I know we talked about it before, then my life went off to Jupiter. But, we are back on earth now, so we really need to make plans to meet. Maybe we could meet halfway, and go to lunch, or plan a picnic or something. (and maybe a small sidetrip to a nursery, grins) We had a great Easter. DD and I worked on Alex new bedroom. Cleaned it out, painted all the walls. She will finish up the trim today. Then we will be putting the furniture in. We are making the bed, it will be built in, with "walls", so it will kinda look like you are going in a door to get into it. Drawers underneath for storage. A small desk with lots of shelves on both sides and recessed lights over it for when he is older, so he can draw, paint, do homework. Also, a built in closet. Right now it will be decorated with Scooby Doo, cause he really loves him, but we have been buying "sports" themed things for later on. We were lucky and found a super cute ceiling light with sports balls around the outside of the glass, too cute. All of our other grandchildren will be over tonight for dinner and to get their Easter baskets. We make all the childrens baskets out of new large bath towels wrapped around a large strip of cardboard, then we fill them with goodies. It is a great alternative to baskets, cause they always wanted to take them home and never remembered to bring them back, so they were really piling up. And, the towels are way more useful. We just make sure to buy them in each kids favorite color, and...

I don't know this particular group, but 40 or 50 years ago, gardening was all too often an activity for the better heeled. It was often for stay at home wives who had free time and a sense of need to cross civic duties with social activities using gardening as an excuse. They often accomplished one or two civic gardening projects a year but socialized frequently to see and be seen. My guess is there are remnants of that remaining....where it is less about gardening and more about social...and perhaps even the pomposity with which those kinds of clubs often operated. I have tried daylily, rose, iris and other specialty clubs but my interest is not that narrowly focused and I get bored and move on. The so-called Master Gardeners are generally new to gardening and very low on the learning curve in my experience....and I got bored with them. The Friends of the U.T. Gardens could be what we might be looking for had it not ventured off into a social club for the elite----- at least they are changing the gardens, though too much change is turning into waste where sound planning ought to be. You probably witnessed the petty rankor that developed last summer over plant swaps. In my years of experience that often happens with clubs. I finally gave up on any ORGANIZATION providing me with interesting plant talk. I do find that on Gardenweb---at least sometimes. Over time, I have met people at plant sales, garden tours, and even nurseries,etc. that I network with......and through their introductions I have met even more people. Good luck...keep searching....and if you find a good group of general interest plant people...let us know...... Maybe we should start a club. Just pick a date, time and place----bring a special plant to swap and see who shows up.