For the competitive lily grower, what could be better than winning a big award at a major lily show? How about having a big award named for you? The Lily Group of the Garden Club of Virginia did just that this year: they have established a perpetual award in my name for the best LA hybrid in the show exhibited by a GCV member.
How cool is that?
LA hybrids are hybrids derived from crosses, difficult crosses, between Lilium longiflorum and Asiatic Hybrid lilies. Because these lilies are not easily hybridized, they have remained a specialty of certain Dutch commercial growers. As a group they are big, vigorous, many flowered, bodacious, buxom and typically softly fragrant hybrids that are easily grown in our climate. The individual flowers can be huge, and strong plants can have literally dozens of them. The name LA has nothing to do with Los Angeles or Hollywood, but these lilies definitely have that sort of glamour.
When I was new to lily shows I remember seeing the annual lineup of old silver arrayed on the awards table, silver engraved with the names of famous persons in our lily world. Now I’m one of them. I feel as if I have been promoted into the lily pantheon.
That’s “my” award in the image above, in the center.
Please keep the jokes about my rapidly enlarging head to yourself.
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