Carmen...didn't you use to go by the name Roberta? If you've lost interest in daylilies, then why are you still here? Just curious... You said, "Today, I realize my hybridizations are at least as good as anyones". This is a rather bold statement - you must've contributed something amazing to the daylily world! Can you imagine being the first to hybridize a truly white daylily, or a new daisy form, or a daylily that blooms in the winter, or a daylily immune to rust?! To hybridize something truly unique would be remembered long after we're gone. I think it's an admirable goal that shouldn't be trivialized. As for your poll....I'd have to say that I am not as enthusiastic about daylilies as I was 5 years ago. This is mainly due to rust, which I knew nothing about when I started growing daylilies. I still enjoy them, but have placed less emphasis on them in my garden than I would have if rust was not an issue. I consider myself part of your "general public" and rarely pay more than $5 - $10 per daylily. But I know that collectors will pay big bucks, whether it's for a daylily or a baseball card. Nothing wrong with it and if you are a good collector it can become a profit making investment. You say that you are "slowly getting rid of any daylilies that aren't absolutely spectacular". I would love to read your list of spectacular daylilies. With your critical eye, I'm certain the wheat has been separated from the chaff. Kathy

Share you gardening experiences at Healthy Home Gardening!!(www.healthyhomegardening.com) Use your gardening expertise to help grow a tree of knowledge. As you share and interact, your little seed grows and grows. Enjoy a variety of topics, such as Pest & Bug Identifier, Mushroom Identifier, Flower Identifier, Plant Disease Identifier, and more. Here is a link that might be useful: Healthy Home Gardening

i just assume that we dirty ones at the nursery or hd are being good examples for more prissy gardeners. who knows, maybe they will feel comfortable enough to show up the next time without having changed their clothes. i'm more apt to talk to a dirty gardener in those places too because i know they are seriously like me. one time i struck up a conversation with a lady about her wagonload of shrubs and flowers and she told me all about her garden. i was impressed with her plans until, at check out, i heard her tell the clerk that her gardener was going to get to work the next day. what a disappointment! i should have looked much closer at her fingernails. min

So...want to bump this to say that, according to a thread on the groups dot io rhododendron forum, Rarefind has been bought by the manager and her husband, and they are fixing the place up and intend to keep what's left of the display plants. This is very good news and I wish them the best. I feel like we on the east coast certainly deserve a quality 'destination' rhododendron nursery. They can be very satisfactory garden plants if their needs are respected. (Although it's worth saying that, based on my visits over the years, at least 60% of the display gardens as of their peak in 2009, when Hank died, are gone. And so a problem is going to be, how they source plants now if the mother plant was sold off, destroyed, or - I wouldn't rule out the possibility in some cases - stolen at some point in the recent years of disarray. Also, what made the original Rarefind special was having experts and hybridizers like Jerry and Ron working on-site. If they just try to sell wholesale liners that people can buy at any other garden center or big box, I wonder how they are going to distinguish themselves. I already talked to the new owner, the last time I was there in early summer 2019 IIRC, about the benefits of offering grafted rhododendron plants. She seemed to at least grasp the concept, so maybe that's a possibility)