By Donna Peck (AHS Ombudsman), with comments from Mary Ann Pruden (Portal Community Manager) and Julie Covington (AHS president)

There have been many questions concerning the AHS Members Only Portal. The Portal was approved by the board and opened in early March 2011. In the last column it was explained WHY we need a Members Only Portal. If you missed that part, log on to the AHS Website and it is under Ask The Ombudsman. This column is devoted to HOW we access the Portal.

HOW DO WE ACCESS THE MEMBERS ONLY PORTAL?

MaryAnn Pruden is the Portal Community Manager and gives some excellent advice about logging on to the Portal.

Any AHS member can access the Portal by going directly to www.daylilynetwork.org. Or through the link on the AHS website (www.daylilies.org) and then, look on the left hand side and click on AHS Members Portal. Julie makes a confession. "My computer has been directed to ‘remember’ so I don’t have to type it in every time, and that makes it much easier.”

If you have never signed into the Portal, your temporary username and password can be found on the Membership Card provided on the outside paper cover of the last few Daylily Journals. If you do not have your membership card, use the Contact Us form on the Portal (found in the upper left navigation area) and your log on information will be sent you.

After you enter your username and password in the designated area on the Portal, you should now have full access to all the Portal features. If after logging in, you still see the log in box, than your computer is not currently set up to allow session cookies. In basic terms, a session cookie acts like a key allowing your entry into different pages of the Portal without having to re-enter you password each time. Session cookie settings can be changed through the tools section of your web browser, i.e. Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc. If you need any help with session cookies or accessing the Portal, please use the Contact Us form and someone will help you.

The first thing you should do after logging onto the Portal for the first time is change your temporary password and username to something unique that you will remember. To do this, go to the My Profile Box on the right hand side of the Portal. Click on Manage Profile and then Edit Bio. Next to both username and Password there is a "change” link. Clink the link and easily change your log on information. At this time, please make sure that all your contact information is correct, including name, address, phone number and email. You can control how much of this information is viewable on the Portal by clicking the associated boxes. The default setting does not allow phone numbers or email to be seen unless you want it to. There is also a step-by-step available for this in the Help Directly under Profile Help.

If any time you forget either your password or username, click on the Forgot Your Password? link. You will be asked for either your username or email address. If we have your correct email address on file, a link to reset your password will be sent to you. Just click on the link, reset your password, and your profile information will come up including your username. If your email address is not on file, then use the Contact Us form and we will reset your password for you.

Julie suggests that "if you haven’t visiting the Portal regularly and are still feeling intimidated, take a minute and scroll down to the HELP DIRECTORY and view the short Power point tutorials. At about this time last year, I viewed these tutorials in order to learn my way around the Portal because I too felt intimidated and found them a huge help in getting started. These tutorials are designed to enhance your Portal experience and they are quite short.”

You will soon be hearing of some special events and fun contests planned for Portal users, so don’t hesitate. Jump right in, the water’s fine!! Our former AHS President, Mary Fisher is so passionate about the Members Portal that she is serving as its General Manager in 2012. Feel free to address your question or concerns directly to her as well at portalgeneralmanager@daylilies.org.

Mary Ann says, at any time, if you have any trouble on the Portal, she also advises to please use the Contact Us form. "We normally answer the forms within a few hours and are happy to help. Enjoy the Portal.”

After reading the Part 1 and Part 2 explaining our AHS Portal, I hope all of you will now log on and enjoy! There is a wealth of information that will be of interest to you, not only about daylilies, but also the AHS members. I’m open to any more discussion so email me at ombudsman@daylilies.org.

WHAT IS THE FOR MEMBERS ONLY PORTAL?

Part One – Why do we need the For Members Only Portal?

By Donna Peck, AHS Ombudsman, with comments from Julie Covington and Mary Collier Fisher

Over the past several years, it became clear to several Board members that a different method for the rapid updating of AHS information on the web was needed. The type of platform that supported www.daylilies.org changes were extremely labor intensive for our capable Webmaster. The AHS President asked Technology Chair and Committee to research additional methods. In the course of that research several social networking companies were identified. The concept of AHS having an interactive social networking site that would not only allow materials to be uploaded from PDF documents easily but that would expand greatly the services we could offer our members. This was discussed widely among the Board, Staff and Committee Chairs who felt it would be an enhancement to our Membership Services.

So in May 2010, at the Board of Directors meeting in Valdosta Georgia, the Membership Chair, Joe Goudeau, noted that this research was underway to explore the feasibility of establishing a member’s only section on the web. When Joe brought the proposal up again for a vote at the fall 2010 fall board meeting, the AHS Board of Directors approved funding to authorize the development of the Members Only Portal. The site opened for members in early March, 2011.

The Portal has now been set up for nearly a year, and I am still getting questions about WHY AHS is doing this and HOW it works. This column is devoted to the WHY question. Next time we will have the HOW column.

WHY DO WE NEED A MEMBERS ONLY PORTAL?

Over the last decade, AHS has been seeking incentives for individuals to join AHS and incentives to retain members. Membership numbers had been declining steadily since 2002. The voucher program is working very well, the trial membership we started last year has over 200 members who have already joined, and our fantastic Daylily Journal is a must read for daylily growers. Our Board and our membership chair, Joe Goudeau, kept trying to provide members with more benefits. By the fall 2010 Board meeting in Columbus, Ohio Membership and Technology presented the proposal that AHS work with the Your Membership firm to build a robust social networking site for AHS Members only, to enhance the capabilities AHS has to provide services and information to members. This proposal passed the Board unanimously.

The site could be used to search for AHS member’s name, city and state by other members, for Regional and National Publications, for educational forums, regional and other groups such as Garden Judges, promotion of regional and local activities via community and regional calendars, automatic reminders of many AHS deadlines including membership renewal via email messages. It provides members with a safe environment to post pictures, participate in a forum and connect with other members. It even allows a protected group for our AHS youths to network about daylilies without non-youth members allowed. The benefits are still being explored and developed.

Another benefit many members took advantage of over the holidays was the AHS store which has daylily merchandise. Tee Money has volunteered to design some great daylily merchandise. She is even able to accommodate one-time special orders for clubs and groups. The Members Portal is a source of ‘One-stop Shopping’ for our members. Items can be purchased, memberships can be issued or renewed, donations can be made, interesting programs can be purchased (some are even free) using credit cards, e-checks, and PayPal.

Julie Covington, AHS President, mentions that "beginning with the spring 2012 issue, you will be able to view the Daylily Journal online at the Portal. The pages are viewable in a Pdf ‘Book format,’ and you can also zoom in on pictures and articles on each page. Under the ‘Daylily Journal’ tab will be a complete page of archived items reprinted from past Journals and you can suggest other articles you’d like to see added.

Several other changes have been made to the front page. We are featuring different members on the left rail, and hope to do that more frequently in 2012. Be sure to look under the ‘Contact Us’ tab, where you can find a link to a

leader of all AHS sponsored robins and other ‘go to’ people, as well as contact information for the Portal leaders, AHS officers, Staff and Special Chair contacts. Another new tab is called ‘Administrative Files.’ While this contains AHS and Regional files, this page is not intended for Regional and National officers only, as we wish to keep the working of this organization transparent for all of our members. One feature on the page is called ‘Regional Offices at a Glance.’ Anyone who is asked to accept a position as a Regional Officer or Liaison can check these pages and quickly find out what is involved in the job!

The direct link to the Portal is http://www.daylilynetwork.org. Another way is to go to the AHS website (www.daylilies.org) and then, click on the AHS Home page. When that appears, look on the left hand side and click on AHS Members Portal.

Next column Julie Covington along with MaryAnn Pruden, Portal community Manager, will discuss in more details about HOW to access the Portal including how to find your password (which I’ve had many questions about). Also check out the excellent Portal article in the 2012 Spring Journal written by Sandy Holmes.

If you have any comments about the WHY we have the portal and the information that Julie and Mary have given here, please email me and I’ll include that in the next column….email me at Ombudsman@daylilies.org . I’m hoping to hear from you, either with your positive comments about the Portal or further concerns you’d like to discuss concerning this subject.

ASK THE OMBUDSMAN

Donna Peck – AHS Ombudsman

This is a question which was asked by Daniel from Olathe, Kansas. I’ve never had this question before and I sent it to Michael Bouman, an Ombudsman committee member, and I learned a great deal from his answer. So hopefully some of you might be interested, along with Daniel, on what he answered.

QUESTION:  I am new to this and I am looking for something white to brighten up a green yard. I like Stella De Oro.  They are low to the ground and bloom for a long time. Is there a white daylily similar to the Stella De Oro?

RESPONSE:  Michael Bouman contacted a hybridizer, Mike Huben.  Michael writes, "He is the leader these days in breeding for continuous bloom in northern daylilies. He is in cool, coastal zone 6 in New England. His near white rebloomers appear to surpass Stella De Oro in performance.”

Mike Huben answered with these comments: "I have introduced three near-white varieties that rebloom continually.  They are:

Snowy Stella (Huben 07)           24” E Re 3.25”, NearWhite Self, Dor Dip                                                                                       

Vanilla Stella (Huben 09)           18 "   E Re 3”, NearWhite Self, Dor Dip

White And Nerdy (Huben 12)   28” EM Re 4.5”, NearWhite Self, Dor Dip

All are available from: http://www.harmonhillfarm.com/mikehuben.htm”

Huben continued,  "I am still in the process of evaluating Encore d’Ivoire.

Encore d’Ivoire (Wetzle 08) 19” EE Re 3.75”, Ivory Self, Dor Dip Ext

Of these, the closest to Stella De Oro in plant habit is Vanilla Stella. The largest and whitest is White And Nerdy. All increase rapidly. Mine seem to be zone 4 hardy.”

Precious d’Oro (not registered) is sold as a near-white, but it is not nearly as white as any of the others. It has not yet rebloomed in my garden, where the others do rebloom. The flower is pretty, but I think the sales pitch is exaggerated.

Michael Bouman added, "The prices you will see for these daylilies are typical of the market for new hybrids and exceed by far what you pay for Stella De Oro at Home Depot. However, rapid increase reported for some of Mike’s whites suggests to me that if you buy one or two plants this year, you’ll have bloom this season and an opportunity to divide your plants and expand your planting every two or three years. When they say ‘rapid increase’ in New Hampshire, you can expect the same or better in the Kansas City area.”

If other members have any ideas for Daniel, please contact me, Donna Peck, ombudsman@daylilies.org and I’ll get the information back to him.  I'd like to know other hybridizers and/or daylilies we could recommend to Daniel.

After posting this Ombudsman question about variegated foliage, I also put it in the E-News. I received an interesting response which I thought you'd be interested in reading.

I have a daylily with variegated foliage as well. It is called Lavender Deal. I have had the daylily for at least 5 years now. The first couple of years I had it the leaves were all green. Suddenly after one year half of the leaves were variegated. I thought it might be a fluke, and they would be green again the next year, but they are still variegated. They are at least as variegated as the ones in Nancy Busses's picture if not more....We have all snow covered here now but I could take a picture and send it to you next summer. It is probably big enough to be divided up now - It is a nice big clump.

Is Lavender Deal one of the varieties known to have variegated leaves? My sister also has a Lavender Deal but hers is not variegated.

Deborah Kasdorff (Golden Lake, Ontario Canada)

My response:  I looked up Lavender Deal in the AHS Data Base and found out it was hybridized by Kirby in 1981 but it didn't say anything about having variegated foliage. So I wrote to our registrar Kevin Walek, knowing he would be the best person to have the correct answer to our question. This is his response:

Unlike hostas, daylilies are grown for their flowers not their foliage. Hostas on the other hand have substantial variation in foliage colors and variegation and their flowers are inconsequential to most gardeners. Thus in registering hostas foliage characteristic are critical in the description whereas for daylilies and other plants grown for flowers foliage is not a material consideration.

In daylilies the appearance of and stablity of the variegation is irregualar (not generally stable or consistent) and is generally due to chimeral rearrangement.

Bottom line is, it is not a common occurence and it is more quirky than sought after.

Kevin P. Walek, Registrar

I'm looking forward to a picture of H. Lavender Deal and the foliage. If any of the other readers have anything to add to this discussion please do. Email me at ombudsman@daylilies.org.

February 28th, 2002

The subject of daylilies with variegate foliage has been interesting.  MaryAnn Borcherding sent me another email and two pictures that she took up in Seattle. This is her email:

"Thought you might like to see pics that we took up in Seattle at a member's garden. This is called Zebra according to the garden owner. When you look it up on the AHS site there is a zebra but the color doesn't match my pic, but it certainly matches yours. In my pics the flower is more golden. As you can see by my pics it isn't a onetime only and she has had the plant for years. She just divides it out and replants to make a row. Very pretty. Of interest is the color of the unopened buds whcih are burgundy."

Click on the pictures and you'll see a beautiful row of the variegated foliage.

 Donna Peck, AHS Ombudsman, has received a variety of questions dealing with the problems of registration dates of daylilies. Recently region 6 had a generous donation of beautiful red daylilies hybridized by Bill Maryott. He introduced it, H. ‘Red Chile Rendezvous’ in 2011 so the members would receive a brand new daylily, never before sold. According to Bill, he introduced it is 2011 just for the regional meeting. However he had registered it in 2009 and sent fans to the Albuquerque club host gardens so the plants would be established by 2011 for the meeting.

This caused some confusion when the daylily was advertised as a 2011 Introduction. This problem has occurred in other situations, and that is what prompted this column.It is hoped the confusion is cleared up. Bill Maryott, Ombudsman committee member,explains the differences between registered and introduction. This was also checked by Kevin Walek and he added a few comments.

Ombudsman Question:

 I had some confusion when I went to register a daylily in this year’s flower show. I had bought the daylily this year as a 2011 introduction but when I went to write out the registration form for the show, I was told it was a 2010 registration. I don’t understand this confusion. What is the difference between registration and introduction of a daylily cultivar?

Response:

 Registration is the process of documenting the details about a specific cultivar. It is done by the AHS registrar (currently Kevin Walek) under the guidelines dictated by the International Plant Identification Group called ICNCP. These guidelines determine the rules by which a plant can be registered. The registrar does not have the right to waiver from these rules. The year of registration is the year this plant was submitted by the hybridizer to the registrar.

 This year begins on November 1 and ends on October 31 the following year. The registrar is required to publish these registrations in a hard copy publication, and only then are they actually registered, and the registration details can be posted on the AHS website.

 All awards within the AHS are keyed off the registration date. Effectively, this is the only date the registrar is involved with. Introduction dates (also sometimes called availability dates or release dates) are determined by the originator (hybridizer) of the cultivar and can be the same as the registration date but are not required to be. They are used for commercial purposes usually to establish the price of a cultivar. The longer a cultivar is available in commerce generally the lower the cost.

The AHS requires that any cultivar published with a cultivar name be registered before being published. All AHS sanctioned shows require that any cultivar entered be formally registered. If an unregistered cultivar is used as a parent in registering a later cultivar it must be registered under a seedling number and not an unregistered name. If a commercial garden enters a non – registered cultivar into commerce before it is registered, they take the chance the name will be rejected or taken by someone else before it is registered. Occasionally an older cultivar that has been in commerce unregistered and widely distributed gets registered long after it is introduced into commerce.

The AHS Ombudsman, Donna Peck, will post a question every two weeks which she has received from an AHS member. She will choose a question that she feels will be of interest too many AHS members. If you have a concern or question email her at ombudsman@daylily.org.

QUESTION: What can you tell me about the trade-marked daylilies?

The October 2010 issue of Southern Living has an advertisement for Garden Debut, marketing their 24/7 daylilies. Close friends of mine brought this advertisement to my attention and thought the daylilies would be in full bloom from spring until frost. You can visit their website at http://www.gardendebut.com/. Their daylilies are not listed as having been registered through AHS. What's the idea? I think this is rotten.

Brenda Jindra – President of the Central Oklahoma Hemerocallis Society

RESPONSE: There is a very big demand for landscape daylilies. They are sold usually by the thousands or at least hundreds instead of as single fans. There are also some major breading activities involved in creating landscape daylilies and there are All American Awards given for the best. The criteria for a good landscape daylily are entirely different from a connoisseur cultivar. They are interested in flowers that open correctly, dead drop, multiple bloom seasons etc. Rarely, for instance, would they choose a round form as the spider forms open so much better.

These cultivars are advertised thru the trade publications, and many landscape architects would be inclined to use landscape daylilies instead of connoisseur daylilies. The price would also be entirely different. They would be selling for one dollar or less per plant. Traditionally, these wholesalers have never bothered to register their cultivars through AHS.

Bill Maryott of Maryott's Gardens, California

QUESTION: Brenda writes back with these comments:

If AHS is sanctioned to handle the registration of Hemerocallis I feel commercial growers should also register their creations through AHS. It shouldn't matter whether the daylily is created for landscaping or for the connoisseur. Probably all of us have experienced receiving a daylily from a hybridizer who gives it a name but never gets around to registering it. We talk about those people and learn never to buy form them until we see their daylilies listed in the AHS database. Giving a name to an unregistered daylily just creates confusion when someone else registers a daylily with this same name.

RESPONSE: Bill's response:

These cultivars are made specifically for landscaping, not for showing. I really don't have a problem with this, BUT they need to add a comment stating something like this: "These daylilies are chosen for landscaping and not for garden shows. They are not registered through the AHS and would not be eligible for any AHS sanctioned shows.”

For your information Donna has contacted this company and received this answer, "Thank you for your enquiry. One of our team members will contact you shortly.”

This was written on January 15^th, and I haven't heard another word. Does anyone else  like to comment on this situation?