Lewis Daylily Garden Popularity Poll

 

Rich Howard's favorite seedling for 2022 (Just One Bite X Heavenly New Frontier)

John Kulpa Kit Walter seedling. (Paul K. Lewis's choice for best new seedling. I have not seen this in person yet, but hope to one day.)

If you didn't know any better, you'd think I am about to put together a segment on best toothy daylilies for 2022.  BUT I'M NOT.  No, actually I got this great idea from reading a thread on Garden.org posted by Steve Todd with some of his favorite daylilies for the 2022 season.  Got me to thinking....I'm a member of the American Daylily Society and they have a popularity poll each year.  I have voted for years, but all I keep seeing are a lot of really old daylilies.  Now I think they are changing their format a little saying you can't keep voting for the same daylily each year, but unfortunately the members must all grow predominately older intros.  I am always looking to see if any of the cutting edge daylilies are on the list of favorites and I never see any votes for anything new. Well, I still love you American Daylily Society, but I thought I would throw together a small group of people to see what their favorite daylilies were.  I picked people that are growing the newest cutting edged daylilies and have exposure to a lot of daylilies either by virtue of the fact that they re sell or buy a lot. This years panel consists of Steve Todd (Illinois), Rich Howard (Connecticut), Kirsten Hatfield (Ohio), Theresa Maris (Kentucky), Elaine Seifert (Illinois) and myself living in Ohio as well.   Here are a list of their favorites.  I will start with Steve Todd since he gave me this idea. 

I broke them into categories.  So here we go:

Steve Todd's favorite new seedling goes to this Jeff Vitale future intro Guardian of the Blood. WOW!

Steve Todd's favorite new introduction goes to Starman from Rich Howard. This is also Rich Howard's choice for favorite striped introduction.

Steve Todd and Rich Howard's choice for favorite patterned intro went to The Downward Spiral.  Gentlemen, your check is in the mail.  Ha ha. Good choice.

Steve Todd and Rich Howard's choice for favorite toothy intro was John Kulpa's Joel Thomas Polston.  It is lovely.

Rich Howard's favorite introduction from another hybridizer is Yoga Man from Dan Hansen. 

Kirsten Hatfield's favorite introduction from another hybridizer is Wrecking Ball from Dan Hansen.

Kirsten Hatfield had 3 favorite seedlings. I picked this one to show. Wow.

Kirsten had 2 choices for favorite patterned intro.  For tets, it was her Jeepers Creepers and for dips it was this photo, which is FKA JT Polston from Bob Faulkner.

Kirsten Hatfield's favorite toothy introduction is If Pelicans Could Smile from Kimberly McCutcheon. A diploid with teeth. 

Kirsten Hatfield's favorite striped intro is Wacky Wednesday from Elaine Seifert.

Kirsten Hatfield's favorite double introduction is Grit and Grace hybridized by her.

Theresa Maris's favorite seedling (Exotic Starfish X Unknown)

Theresa Maris's favorite introduction this year was Pray Without Ceasing from Karol Emmerich.

Theresa Maris's favorite patterned introduction is Beach Party Pedicure (Gold). This was also Elaine Seifert's choice for favorite patterned daylily. 

Theresa Maris's favorite toothy was Lily Among Thorns from Karol Emmerich.

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Theresa Maris's favorite striped introduction was Yankee Pinstripes from Rich Howard.

Theresa Maris had a 2nd favorite striped daylily.  Wacky Wednesday from Elaine Seifert.  2 votes for Elaine's intro. 

Elaine Seifert's favorite toothy this year was Bloodsport from Mike Holmes.

Elaine Seifert's favorite seedling was seedling #85 (Biting Pumpkins X Sweet Pibble Kisses)

Elaine Seifert also said she is excited about this seedling. (Speaking of Speckled X Northwood Dot Com)

Paul K. Lewis's favorite introduction and favorite toothy introduction for this year was Parker Raymond from John Kulpa.  WOW.  It blew me away.

Paul K. Lewis's favorite striped introduction is Laurelwood's Midsummer Masquerade from Angela Ridder.

Paul K. Lewis's favorite patterned daylily is my future intro, Whisper to a Scream.

Well, there is our mini popularity poll in a nut shell. I liked that were several intros that had more than one vote.  For such a small group I feel you got to see some of the newer daylilies out there and also got to see what's coming in the future.  Maybe the ADS should do some sort of segment on member's seedlings and future intros.  I would be interested to see pictures like that in our journal.  Anyway, hope you are having a nice holiday season.  I hope to begin 2023 with an interview with Mike Grossman and Kathleen Nordstrom.  Stay tuned!