Silver Works for garden club members

The gift is courtesy of the Nova Scotia Association of Garden Clubs and is a Future Directions Committee project. The NSAGC is a blanket organization that assists with the efforts of close to 50 garden clubs in the province.

Past chair June Robertson says NSAGC has been busy trying to improve what it can provide for the membership of garden clubs. The fans (rootstocks) of the ‘Silver Thaw’ daylilies will be distributed to district directors for them to take home to their clubs at the annual convention in Truro on June 6/7. “As far as I know we have a fan going to 1753 members of garden clubs across Nova Scotia,” said Robertson. “This year we'll be covering the province in Silver Thaw and in addition we are sponsoring a beautification project contest where clubs can compete by undertaking a new beautification project for their community.”

Other NSAGC initiatives have included a website (www.nsagc.com), funding for special speakers at conventions and a training workshop in Truro on propagation which two people from each district attended and taught techniques to their own club members afterwards.

The NSAGC held a competition last year to name the daylily that was to be distributed. Anna Wilkie of the Dartmouth Horticultural Society’s submission of ‘Silver Thaw’ was chosen and she won $100 worth of daylilies.

Wayne Storrie, who co-owns Canning Daylily Gardens with Wayne Ward, says they have been growing Silver Thaw as an unnamed cultivar in their gardens for over seven years. “The original plant actually arrived in Nova Scotia, over a decade ago, as a seed, from a source in Arkansas. We have been selling the plant, under the garden name Takes The Cake, for many years,” said Storrie. The Waynes registered the cultivar as Silver Thaw this spring.

The owners were able to multiply the diploid daylily fairly quickly for the demand. “We still have as many as 15, 7-year clumps in two beds,” said Storrie. ‘Silver Thaw’ is white with a greenish-yellow throat - a typical color pattern for all white daylilies. The foliage is quite upright, as opposed to the arching habit usually seen in most daylilies. The flower is quite flat and sits just above the top of the foliage. The plant blooms mid to late season. “We feel quite honored to have a seedling of ours selected by the NSAGC,” said Storrie.