Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Viette's Daylily, Food, and Wine Festival




Daylilies from the top down: 'Cherryglow hybrid'; 'Elegance'; 'Late Splendor'

We went back this year for, I think the third time though it's been a few years. Viette's is a nursery with an interesting history. Another time. The food was good and the wine was impressive. I tasted frm most of the vineyards and a few vintages were truly good. That sounds petty but....you didn't used to encounter wines of that quality from the east coast. At least at festivals. We really came for the daylilies though.

My photograph is from the festival back across the pond, through the daylily beds and to the nursery proper and the family residence barely visible at the far right. (of Andre and Claire) They have been hybridizing perennials, with an emphasis on daylilies for a long time.'Elegance' was the most impressive daylily that I noticed; its flowers have been measured at 11.5 inches across! Wow. I heard myself describing it at work Monday and I didn't do right by it. It is a "not white" flower, but the yellow and green in the throat....well, it's beautiful. I like the subtlety of color in the other two. That's difficult to see because of the lighting and my casual photography. Their flowers are above average as well though nowhere near the size of 'Elegance'.  I didn't photograph any reds though they had a lot of good ones. Rain seemed to do much more damage to reds than the others. Clearly much of their breeding is to refine and improve the reds; there were some very impressive plants.

At the nursery they had hundreds of potted daylilies but these were in their trial beds, new plants that weren't yet in any/heavy production. There was a procedure for ordering but I've forgotten it. I'm sure it's on their website.


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