At my first national show I had the pleasure of sitting at a staging table with a senior member of the society. I had only about 10 flowers to enter, whereas she was surrounded by buckets and buckets of them. Sadly, they were straight out of the garden. They had not been identified, or cleaned and clocked. Many had flaws that stood out from across the table. My new friend worked for several hours, after which she had managed to sort out only a couple of five stem entries. And the next morning, her buckets were nearly as full as they had been the night before. Only a small percentage of what she brought actually made it to the bench.
All of us want to win more ribbons, but actually doing that requires more than just buying and planting a lot of likely winners. And it requires a lot more than simply showing up at the show with hundreds of blooms, as I discovered at this convention. Winning more often than not requires organization.
Let’s just imagine that you have in your refrigerator 78 gloriously beautiful show flowers. For the past week you’ve been picking them a few at a time and after writing their names on the stems you’ve brought them inside, for a thorough examination and cleaning. You’ve clocked their faces and you’ve straightened their stems, you’ve angled their tips and you’ve allowed them to get a good drink in tepid water before storing them away until the eve of the show. Each of these blooms could win a blue ribbon, but none of them actually will until you decide where on the bench they will be placed and make sure they get there. As each flower is examined for flaws and is selected for showing, its name should be written on a list along with all its other identifying characteristics, such as color code, country of origin, hybridizer, and date of registration.
While these blooms are in storage you have the opportunity to sort and resort this list to find what possibilities there are for show entries. This data scrutiny can either be done manually or with a data base. And while it may seem like a time consuming task, entering this data in your computer will allow you to make accurate sorts instantaneously and can be well worth the time spent on it. Also, doing this at home and not at the show, gives you the opportunity to return to the garden for another bloom or two to complete a specific class where necessary. Once you are in the staging room it will be too late for that. Let’s pretend that, in alphabetical order, these are the 78 flowers you’ve selected to show:
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2 Absegami 2Y-YYR 1 Acceleration 7YYW-W 4 American Classic 2Y-WYY 1 Ashmore 2W-GWW 1 Aspasia 8W-Y 1 Backchat 6Y-Y 3 Badbury Rings 3Y-YYO 1 Bell Song 7W-P 1 Beryl 6W-YYO 3 Cape Point 2W-P 4 Carole Lombard 3W-YYO 1 Cassandra 9W-GYR 1 Chanson 1W-P 1 Cinnamon Ring 3W-WWO 1 Coldbrook 2Y-W 1 Cosmic Dance 20-R |
1 Croesus 2Y-YYO 1 Crystal Springs 2YYW-GWW 1 Dan DuPlessis 8Y-O 1 Fiona Jean 7Y-GYY 1 Fragrant Rose 2W-GPP 4 Gowo 3W-YYR 3 Gull 2W-W 1 Irish Rum 2Y-O 1 Itzim 6Y-R 1 Jovial 5Y-O 1 Katrina Rae 6W-WWO 4 Killearnan 3W-GYR 3 La Paloma 3W-GYR 1 Lady Alice 7Y-Y 1 Lapwing 5W-Y 1 Magic Step 2W-P |
1 Martinette 8Y-O 2 Miss Primm 2Y-Y 1 Misty Meadow 7YYW-W 1 Molten Lava 3Y-YYR 1 Notre Dame 2W-GYP 3 Pacific Rim 2Y-YYR 1 Pengarth 2YYW-WWY 3 Stranocum 3W-GYO 1 Poet’s Way 9W-GYR 1 Pogo 3W-GYO 1 River Queen 2W-W 3 Saberwing 5W-GWW 1 Stilton 9W-YYR 3 Thackery 9W-GYR 1 Treble Two 7Y-GYY 1 Velvet Spring 2Y-Y |
When I’m working a jigsaw puzzle, like most people I dump all the pieces in the middle of the table and then I sort them out. I first locate all the border pieces. With flat edges, they are the most obvious. When sorting out your daffodils, look for the largest or most obvious class you can find. The Tuggle requires 12 vases of three from three divisions which should be easy to spot in your list if you include how many stems of each cultivar you have selected.. If we pretend this is a regional show you’ll be entering, you will want to find out if you have the required blooms for this prestigious award. Three each of American Classic 2Y-WYY, Badbury Rings 3Y-YYO, Cape Point 2W-P, Carole Lombard 3W-YYO, Gowo 3W-YYR, Gull 2W-W, Killeaman 3W-GYR, La Paloma 3W-GYR, Pacific Rim 2Y-YYR, Saberwing 5W-GWW, Stranocum 3W-YYO, and Thackery 9W-GYR is enough to complete the entry. This choice will eliminate 36 flowers right off the top making the rest of your decisions much easier.
After that, your remaining list will look like this:
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2 Absegami 2Y-YYR 1 Acceleration 7YYW-W 4 American Classic 2Y-WYY 1 Ashmore 2W-GWW 1 Aspasia 8W-Y 1 Backchat 6Y-Y 1 Bell Song 7W-P 1 Beryl 6W-YYO 1 Carole Lombard 3W-YYO 1 Cassandra 9W-GYR 1 Chanson 1W-P 1 Cinnamon Ring 3W-WWO 1 Coldbrook 2Y-W 1 Cosmic Dance 20-R 1 Croesus 2Y-YYO 1 Crystal Springs 2YYW-GWW 1 Dan DuPlessis 8Y-O 1 Fiona Jean 7Y-GYY 1 Fragrant Rose 2W-GPP 1 Gowo 3W-YYR |
1 Irish Rum 2Y-O 1 Itzim 6Y-R 1 Jovial 5Y-O 1 Katrina Rae 6W-WWO 1 Killearnan 3W-GYR 1 Lady Alice 7Y-Y 1 Lapwing 5W-Y 1 Magic Step 2W-P 1 Martinette 8Y-O 2 Miss Primm 2Y-Y 1 Misty Meadow 7YYW-W 1 Molten Lava 3Y-YYR 1 Notre Dame 2W-GYP 1 Pengarth 2YYW-WWY 1 Poet’s Way 9W-GYR 1 Pogo 3W-GYO 1 River Queen 2W-W 1 Stilton 9W-YYR 1 Treble Two 7Y-GYY 1 Velvet Spring 2Y-Y |
With 42 flowers left, look for
another easy-to-discover class, 5 historics, standard flowers bred
before 1940. Your data sorting by date bred will reveal that you have
Cassandra bred in 1897, Beryl in 1907, Aspasia in 1908, Stilton in 1909,
and Croesus in 1912. After this, sort by color codes to
see if you have five flowers with reverse bi-color codes to vie for
a Maroon Ribbon. You have Acceleration 7Y-YYW-W, Pengarth 2YYW-WWY,
Crystal Springs 2YYW-GWW, Misty Meadow 7YYW-W, and Coldbrook 2Y-W. Eliminate these ten flowers and your list now looks like this:
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2 Absegami 2Y-YYR 1 American Classic 2Y-WYY 1 Ashmore 2W-GWW 1 Backchat 6Y-Y 1 Bell Song 7W-P 1 Carole Lombard 3W-YYO 1 Chanson 1W-P 1 Cinnamon Ring 3W-WWO 1 Cosmic Dance 20-R 1 Dan DuPlessis 8Y-O 1 Fiona Jean 7Y-GYY 1 Fragrant Rose 2W-GPP 1 Gowo 3W-YYR 1 Irish Rum 2Y-O 1 Itzim 6Y-R |
1 Jovial 5 Y-O 1 Katrina Rea 6 W-WWO 1 Killearnan 3W-GYR 1 Lady Alice 7Y-Y 1 Lapwing 5W-Y 1 Magic Step 2W-P 1 Martinette 8Y-O 2 Miss Primm 2Y-Y 1 Molten Lava 3Y-YYR 1 Notre Dame 2W-GYP 1 Poet’s Way 9W-GYR 1 Pogo 3W-GYO 1 River Queen 2W-W 1 Treble Two 7Y-GYY 1 Velvet Spring 2Y-Y |
A sort by division will allow you to discover that you have 12 flowers from three divisons in divisions five through ten that you can enter in a Havens Collection. They include: Lapwing 5W-Y, Martinette 8Y-O, Jovial 5Y-O, Fiona Jean 7Y-GYY, Bell Song 7W-P Itzim 6Y-R, Backchat 6Y-Y, Dan du Plesis 8Y-O, Poet’s Way 9W-GYR, Treble Two 7Y-GYY Katrina Rae 6W-WWO, and Lady Alice 7Y-Y. Now, sort the rest by country of origin and select 5 American bred flowers for a Red, White, and Blue Ribbon. You can choose the following: Pogo (Link), Velvet Spring (Havens), Absegami (Bender), Miss Primm (Dorwin), and Magic Step (Havens).
These are the remaining blooms from your original 78:
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1 Absegami 2Y-YYR 1 American Classic 2Y-WYY 1 Ashmore 2W-GWW 1 Carole Lombard 3W-YYO 1 Chanson 1W-P 1 Cinnamon Ring 3W-WWO 1 Cosmic Dance 20-R 1 Fragrant Rose 2W-GPP |
1 Gowo 3W-YYR 1 Irish Rum 2Y-O 1 Killearnan 3W-GYR 1 Miss Primm 2Y-Y 1 Molten Lava 3Y-YYR 1 Notre Dame 2W-GYP 1 River Queen 2W-W --- |
You could enter a class for 5 stems from Division 2 and another class of 5 stems from Division 3 and cross your fingers for the Purple Ribbon, but you would leave five flowers out of the competition for ADS ribbons. What’s interesting about these remaining flowers is that none of them has exactly the same color code, thus qualifying them as a group to compete for the Throckmorton Ribbon. Simple as pie, you have sorted yourself out from a mere bucket of blooms to a Tuggle, an Historic, a Maroon, a Red, White, and Blue, a Havens, and a Throckmorton entry.
Now you might say, “Yes, but this is only pretend. It would never actually happen this way in a million years.” That’s where you’d be wrong. Nancy Pilipuf entered these flowers in just this way in the Central Regional in Rockford, Illinois, in 2006 and won all these ribbons. When I spoke to Nancy recently, she told me she did not use a computer, but she agreed with me that she would never have been able to do it without all the many detailed notes she took after picking her flowers. These notes and lists, she said, were very very important to her as she was deciding what to enter and where. Before she ever left home, she already knew where every flower would go.
You won’t win every class you enter. No one ever does. But you won’t ever win if you don’t first put the flowers on the bench. By doing your homework, you can eliminate much of the stress of the staging process and focus your energy on creating pleasing exhibits that will present well to the judges. Coming prepared to the show with a strategy for all your flowers is a great way to increase your chances of winning. It will also allow you some time to visit and enjoy all your daffodil friends when you get there and to help other exhibitors who haven’t yet figured all this out for themselves.