Iris and daylily web sites and 'lists'
- To: <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Iris and daylily web sites and 'lists'
- From: N* L* <7*@CompuServe.COM>
- Date: 31 Oct 96 10:42:38 EST
>> "Web Sites of Interest to Gardeners"...American Iris Society
>> (http://wwwisomedia.com/homes/AIS/) and the blurb "Information on the
>> society ...
Carolyn, Clarence's report from the Am. Horticultural Society magazine above
was about the AIS web page, not the IRIS-L. I believe the AIS page is an
official publication of the AIS, unlike our beloved list.
Don't know why the magazine included the AIS site and not the daylily
society's, which has been in existence for about ten months. For those of you
who might be interested, the American Hemerocallis Society's web page is at
http://www.daylilies.org/daylilies.html. It includes a list of all the local
daylily clubs, with contacts, and official display gardens around the U.S.
where you can see representative plantings. Also included are lists of the
cultivars that won the regional 'popularity polls' with some pictures, lists of
daylily suppliers, and the '96 national award winners (just published on the
web site although they won't appear in the quarterly Daylily Journal for
another few months!).
You can be a member of a local club without joining the national society, and
obviously you can visit the display gardens. Just about the only thing you
can't do without being a member is participate in the AHS's email 'round
robin.' Which brings me to Amy's dead horse:
>> having a "closed Internet society" like the daylily folks do doesn't
>> help. I'd love to discuss cultivars and care without having to be a
>> member of AHS, as I've stated before.... but can't :-( the Internet
>> is often about teaching and converting rather than conversation
>> between those that already know what they are talking about. I hope
>> the daylily folks didn't need a helping hand (and a free one at that)
>> to learn about the 'Net and netiquette. We offer freely here and they
>> don't.
I've explained privately to Amy in the past the history and reasons for the
difference between the IRIS-L and the daylily society's email robin, and at the
risk of boring this group I will repeat it here. "We offer freely and they
don't" makes it sound as if iris people are somehow more net-savvy and generous
than daylily folk. The difference is simply a historical one.
Tom Tadfor-Little and a few other folks with initiative decided in 1996 to
start an iris discussion group independent of the AIS. This was a very good
thing.
Tim Fehr and a few other folks with initiative decided early in 1995 to start
an e-mail daylily discussion group that would be an extension of the AHS's
traditional postal round robins and would be officially sponsored by the AHS.
This was also a good thing (if not exactly what Amy's looking for). It has
resulted in an official AHS web page which publishes award winners instantly
and a commitment to publish the AHS checklist of registrations and
introductions on CD-ROM; both of these are/will be available to the general
public as well as members. The national board has just made a number of other
positive changes directly attributable to the increased communication within
the society on the e-robin.
In fact, absolutely nothing prevents anyone from starting up a daylily
equivalent to the IRIS-L in which participants would not have to be AHS
members. I think this would be a good thing, too, and would be willing to
post regularly and help publicize it if it happened. It's unlikely that an
independent group designed to reach out to new daylily gardeners would attract
the number of major hybridizers and veteran growers-and-showers that the IRIS-L
has, but it would still be of great value.
The Internet is just a medium, and from its inception has had closed lists as
well as open ones. It's not "about" anything because it's about everything.
Nell Lancaster, Lexington, Virginia 75500.2521@compuserve.com
