Contributed By Terry Mullins

Most of us remember our grandmother’s flower gardens.

There were yellow bell bushes, snowball bushes, the infamous ‘switch’ bushes and many other plants and flowers, including the tall and stately orange daylily. I remember those from my own grandmother’s house. They were planted all along two sides of the house and made a striking display during the spring and summer.

Today we see a lot of those orange daylilies growing on the roadsides. Beautiful flowers, of course, but there is a whole different world of daylilies.

The national organization, The American Hemerocallis Society or AHS, currently recognizes over 70,000 different registered daylilies, a lot more than just one orange flower. The flowers range in size from less than three inches to more than seven inches. Some are doubles, some have long and frilly petals, some twist and curl. The blooms can range in color from almost white, to almost black. Some will have three or four colors on one bloom.

Daylilies are especially easy to grow, they need good soil, six to eight hours of sun, a little fertilizer and some water. They start blooming in early spring and will continue throughout the summer. Yes, the blooms only last one day, but as all daylily growers know, that’s the fun of it.

The national organization was founded in 1946, and has grown to include fifteen regions throughout the United States. The AHS is a non-profit organization existing exclusively for educational and scientific purposes, and especially to promote, encourage and foster the development of the daylily and to promote public interest.

The entire state of Georgia is one region, Region 5. The Northwest Georgia Daylily Society is a member of Region 5. One of the ways the society promotes public interest and education in the daylily is by presenting exhibition shows and conducting plant sales. The Northwest Georgia Daylily Society held its first exhibition show in June 2002. The society has held one annually since that year, missing only one year.

The exhibition shows allow daylily growers to bring their daylilies to be judged by a panel of accredited daylily judges. Those daylilies judged to be the best of their division are then judged again for best in show.

The NWGDS will usually have between 150 and 200 daylily exhibits to be judged. This year there will be a design division that will be judged by the public by popular vote. The NWGDS invites the public to see this years show in Calhoun at the North Georgia Experiment Station on McDaniel Station Road on Saturday, June 16, 2012. The show will be open to the public from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. The plant2sale will open at 9 a.m.

For more information on the show, daylilies and the NWGDS, go to www.nwgds.org. Come and join us and see some beautiful flowers that are “Not your Grandmother’s daylilies.”