MARLS Lily Show in St. Louis !

llilyfan and I have been studying to be Lily Judges. We completed a grueling 3-part course on judging lilies last summer. Part of the exam was to identify 15 lily stems by name & division & orientation. We also had to "judge" a mini-show where the scores we gave to the lily stems had to match the scores of seadoned judges! Talk about pulling your hair out....

Anyway, llilyfan passed with flying colors and I sneaked by. We have to grow and show lilies, naturally. The final part of our training? We have to student judge at 3 Regional Lily Shows (3 states) and be approved by 3 Lily Head Judges. We started our student judging last Saturday.

Sue & I headed down to the Marls Lily Show at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens thru rain & wind & lightening & foot deep water & rush hour traffic on Friday afternoon. It took us 1 1/2 hours to drive the last 18 miles. (We later found out that 8 tornadoes were whirling around in that awful storm over the Interstate!)

Saturday morning, we were at the Lily Show bright & early....

The Missouri Regional Lily Society had some beautiful educational displays set up.

This one is on how to identify the different Lily Divisions.

We found the MARLS members to be very friendly. Not too many stems to be judged--their weather has been cool & rainy , delaying blooms too.

The Judges were generous as they shared their knowledge with us. This was the FIRST time in 30 years for them to have Martagons at their Lily Show, so llilyfan and I got to judge them! (We both grow martagons.)

We loved this display clearly showing the differnce between True Lilys (lillium) and Daylilies (hemorcallis). How many times have we had to explain it ???




This message was edited Jun 10, 2008 7:19 AM

More educational materials on how to grow and show lilies....

She sure makes it sound interesting doesn't she. Flying colors!! That was all the silver and gold hair from my head! I have it on good authority we were only a point or two apart!

The members MARLS were wonderful. Our head judge decided we would judge as a group and Wanda and I only got put on the spot a few times with the preliminary judging of the stems.

The educational displays were really great and seeded some ideas for our own Society here in Iowa.

Here is a rare photo of Wanda with husband/wife MARLS members and also members of the Botanical Gardens. They were so generous and provided Wanda and I with tickets to the BG, so we were able to see all the unique sculptures by Nikki which was a very interesting experience.

No matter where you went in the room there was information available to the visitor. I really liked that.

This was a table right by the entrance with lots of info on a number of topics of interest to a gardener.

rare photo? My mouth is closed?

I was fascinated by their Lily design entries--Library theme with a series of books for each class inspiration.
This one was an Italian Cookbook & titled "Dinner with the Sopranos"

More use of Lilies in design....

here is llilyfan bribing the Head Judge to give us a passing grade on our student judging....

A cool chart on the different types of lillium bulbs.... great public displays!

I didn't say it! I...............ummmmmmmmmm...............just meant........... you were in front of the camera instead of behind it. Yea, that's what I meant!

Yes, the artistic displays were really wonderful and there were a lot of them. I did like the book themes, would be an almost endless supply of themes available. One was even a Star Trek theme!

I didn't get very good pictures but I think this one shows most of the artistic design display area.

Well, that's a rare one of me....................I've got my mouth open!

Hey it worked, we both got a "Very Well Done"!

One of the first items to catch my eye as we entered the room was a lilium flag. Ummm do I feel my quilting urges coming to the surface?

Was there just those 2 or 3 tables of lilies to judge?

Neat. It sounds like you had fun.

Yes, just those 3 tables. But........because everthing was so late they had their first martagons ever in 26 years!

I really did have fun and it was a great learning experience. Fred was great with us and asked us to explain why we placed our stems the way we did, and they explained how and why they placed the stems the way they did.

Wandaflowers and lilyfan, thank you for taken the time to share some of your great experience with us Lilies lovers! I'm glued to the PC's screen to see and learn more.
Kim

I'm sure yous had a lot of fun, and education. I'd have to say that if I had to give a prize for inovation, it would be the use of spaghetti in the "Dinner with the Sopranos" entry . . .

Good eye, Lefty.

Looks like you 2 came away with a nice first-judging encounter and other great ideas. Good job!

Will St. Louis ever be the same after you two were there? :) You guys did good! I'm proud of you two!

Diann

We were on our best behavior................we might want to do it again!

Aw, but that's no fun, but alas, it's probably just as well. :) We all were too far away to bring you bail money. :) LOL

Thanks for the viewings;
soon you'll be top rank judges.
I wish I could make the St L Botanical Gardens my backyard.

I don't feel so bad I didn't get any pictures to post for you guys. I was to busy (gulp) buying up lillies. Fred was absolutely no help! He kept pointing out what I just had have. Unfortunately I was raised to respect my elders so there you are. I got there on Sunday and missed all the judging and the good stuff of course. Story of my life. Fred told me that Dennis was coming and then dropped the "at 5 o'clock". I had to be home cooking and getting kids ready by then. Oh well. Such is life. No, seriously, it was wonderful! Fred was great! He even loaded my van for me. Pat was a dear. I ended up becoming a member and signing up to help with the fall sale.

All in all I was a great afternoon and I didn' have the kids with me.

Sounds like an exhausting day buying all those lilies ~ hope you didn't wear yourself out completely! ;)

PS. Those Fall sales can be dangerous. Rest up, and carry a fully loaded pocketbook.

I sure wish Wanda and I had still been in the showroom to meet you!

Well, since you are now a member maybe you will have to go to the NALS Show in Springfield next year and we'll get to meet face to face then!

Ok Lilyfan, fill me in. With all the acronyms I feel like I did a million years ago as a new Army wife. Thank G-d I'm good a languages.

North American Lily Society

The Ozark Regional is hosting the world show next year.

Ok so in order to attend you have to be a NALS member AND pay $100 registration fee for the show?
Show lunches and dinners run from $20-$45! Wow. I grabbed these prices from this years show in Canada. Seems rather steep.

You can attend the show without all the fees. If you want to participate in the seminars, lunches, and tours you have to pay the fees.

This year in Canada seemed to be especially steep. Wanda, Moby, and I did the NALS show in Wisconsin in 2006 and had a blast.

Oh yeah, that's where the "snorting" incident took place, isn't it. :) LOL

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA I thought that topic was sleeping!

LOL sorry, especially after you were so nice about my weedy lily bed. :)

llilyfan will never live THAT one down---- I kn wo the speeches were boring at the awards banquet , but.... :)

Sue and I toured the Missouri Botanical garden after the Lily judging. members got us in free as their guests. We were interested in the plants & trees, but the weird exhibiton of statues by "Nikki" kept getting in the way...

Sue hated most of the huge gaudy things placed in every nook and corner. But she said she could tolerate this handsome lion in her garden. if you had room...

This one was just a huge glassy mosaic nightmare. A contemplation of death or Mexico's October holiday?

Weird.. I do like that Lion tho...

I kind of started to identify with the oversized women statues. Colorful, fat, happy--I can dig that!

Yes--and they popped up even inside the tropical geodistic dome...

It was as hot and muggy inside the dome as out--we enjoyed the range of plants inside.

You two were having way too much fun. :) Good for you!