Hibiscus of the Year Award

[Charlie]

Food for thought, Chris!!!!


Charlie

[jj]

The discussion of hibiscus of the year award brings to mind the contests held for daylilies each year.  I am a rampant daylily grower but find that I do not always agree with the directions taken by hybridizers.   I like certain shapes, colors and not others, and I'm reasonably certain that those making selections for the hibiscus folks are the same.  I, for example, do not like the gray or most of the brown hibiscus developed.  Give me the bright colors and the dark centers as well as the pretty pinks.  If I were a judge, I would probably never chose a gray flowered CV to win.  The winners are not really the best new flower developed just the favorite of the the judges chosen to make the selection.  A system of giving certain grades or classifications to hibicus as they do with daylilies would be fairer and more consistent from year to year than having just one "winner".

Jan


Jan

[Charlie]

Hi Jan,

You wouldn't know it by the amount of attention paid to browns and other unusual colors, but sales have always shown that the bright, cheerful colored hibiscus are the most popular overall. HVH best sellers for 2010 so far are Acapulco Gold and Rainbow Sherbet although our results are also affected by how many of each variety we have to offer. For example, we didn't have enough Saffron or Simple Pleasures this year for some reason or they would have ranked close to the top.

I'd like to learn some more about how daylillies are classified. Could you give us the quick version?

Thanks,

Charlie

[Charlie]

Chris, I missed your post about solving the hybridizers age old quandary. If I ever finish the mystery maybe I should call it UNK x Unk. lol

Charlie

[helixturnhelix]

[nina]

For those who are interested in the HOTY.

The International Hibiscus Society has also a hoty programme. Basically, it works like this:
We have first a photo contest where people show their hybrids, with three bloom photos and basic info on parentage, form, substance and bloom duration. The membership by voting chooses the ones they like the most.

Out of those best ones, The IHS judges choose 10 that they consider the most worthy.

Those first ten ones are chosen for the hoty programme. We have four trialing stations, one in the USA, one in Germany, one in Sicily and one in Brazil, that grow and  test those ten hybrids for three years, submitting a report every six months with a detailed estimation about many characteristics of the bush and bloom, and photos of the bush and bloom.

After that, IHS judges (seven of them) vote, on the basis of all those reports, and the winner is chosen.

We encounter many,many problems in the hoty programme, but we struggle with them the best we can, and we hope that we manage, bit by bit, to promote by that programme a good quality hibiscus hybrid versus a sea of bad hybrids that are in circulation.
You can see the IHS winners,and learn a lot about our programme, our trialing stations, on the links:
http://www.internationalhibiscussociety.org/TPCPhotos/SOTY2003/soty_2003.htm
http://www.internationalhibiscussociety.org/HOTYVote2/index.htm 
http://www.internationalhibiscussociety.org/HOTY/2003/2003.HTM