2013 American Peony Society Banquet and Auction

2013 American Peony Society Banquet
Longwood Gardens Conservatory Ballroom
The banquet for the 2013 American Peony Society Convention was held in the most glorious ballroom at Longwood. Everything was perfect (accept the lack of air conditioning!) LOL. The dark wood paneled walls were covered in a rose pink jacquard fabric. The ceiling and walls were adorned with ornate chandeliers. The tables were set with fine floral patterned table linens and of course all of our favorite flower, peonies! The food was exquisite. We had mixed baby greens, mushroom soup, and a goat cheese tart for our appetizers. Dinner was melt in your mouth beef medallions and scallops with summer vegetables and creamy polenta. Dessert was all about strawberries. There was strawberry, mango, & basil sorbet, strawberry & rhubarb shortcake, and vanilla panna cotta with strawberries & almonds. Everything was delish!
Don Hollingsworth Receives
Bertrand H. Farr Lifetime Achievement Award


Naming Ceremony for Peony 'W. E. B. Du Bois'
During dinner APS president Dana Trethway conducted the APS general meeting. At the meeting Don Hollingsworth received in absentia the Bertrand H. Farr Lifetime Achievement Award. Also a peony plant was named after W. E. B. Du Bois, a white single peony which was showered with champagne during the naming ceremony. After dinner it was time for the annual auction, which I was much looking forward to. The auction took quite a while since there were almost 100 items up for auction. However, Jim & Lore Sampson did a great job, and there were definitely some deals to be had. Both of the items I donated to the auction sold for good prices. The Sterling Silver Peony Topaz Necklace I donated went for $50, and the Peony 'Bartzella' went for $80. Overall it was a nice evening with friends and peony enthusiasts.

American Peony Society Auction

2013 American Peony Society Court of Honor Winners

This year was a challenging one for the American Peony Society's flower show. The climate of a conservatory is definitely warmer than an air conditioned hotel ballroom. So the added heat and humidity was quite a strain on the 2013 APS show flowers. This was my first year participating as a judge for the show, and I learned immensely. We even had a member of the Longwood Gardens staff as a guest judge on our team. It was nice to get an outside perspective on the judging and also get some insight into how other national clubs judge their shows.
2013 American Peony Society Flower Show Judging
There were several categories that had a multitude of entries and some others that had only one entry (many of the tree peony categories and several of the amateur categories). So additional participation is always welcome! All of the single stem blue ribbon first place winners are considered for the American Peony Society Court of Honor. So after all of the many categories have been judged, all of the blue ribbon winners are pulled and and placed into smaller categories. A Court of Honor representative is selected from each of these smaller subcategories filled with blue ribbon winners. The Best in Show flower is then selected from the Court of Honor. The Best in Show award this year went to Peony 'Boreas' a Nassos Daphnis hybrid tree peony, which was selected from the APS Court of Honor:

Peony 'James Pillow'	Peony 'Angel Cheeks'	Peony 'Ave Maria'
Peony 'Maestro'	Peony 'Honor'	Peony 'Prairie Charm'
Peony 'Raspberry Charm'	Peony 'Sonoma Amethyst'	Peony 'Boreas' (Best In Show)
Peony 'Renkaku'	Peony 'Kamata-fuji'	Peony 'Shima-nishiki'
Peony 'Marie Laurencia'	Peony 'Alice Harding'

2013 American Peony Society Board Meeting

The American Peony Board meeting was attended by most members this year. I was the newest member, having been asked to replace a member that needed to resign his duties. We approved last year's meeting notes and treasury report. The board decided to approve $5,000 in funding to rejuvenate the American Peony Society web site. There are plans to add lots more pictures for all of the American Peony Society Gold Medal Winners, some other photo galleries, as well as update the layout to make the information more available and friendly to users. The APS also plans to communicate official press releases via its web site. Lore and I also discussed ways to survey our membership to find out what we could offer existing and potential future members as well. The 2013 APS Gold Medal Winner was also selected from 6 nominated peonies: Peony 'Cora Stubbs', Peony 'Diana Parks', Peony 'Eliza Lundy', Peony 'Lucky', Peony 'Mackinac Grand', and Peony 'Mahogany'. The president also announced plans to name a peony after a prominent person and peony lover at tomorrow's banquet, as well as potential future flower naming ceremonies. The location of next year's convention was announced as the Kingwood Center in Mansfield, OH.

2013 APS Peony Convention Longwood Garden Tour

Longwood Gardens Entrance
The 2013 American Peony Society Convention started today, and I arrived to the garden tour a little late since I had an early flight this morning. However Longwood Gardens was magnificent, and their staff took great care of me - arranging someone to transport me directly to my APS group who were enjoying the Longwood Gardens "Behind the Scenes" tour.

APS Convention Attendees Examining the Display Garden	APS Convention Attendees Listening to the Tour Guide

Lunch was in the Longwood Gardens' The Founders Room dining room, and it tasted fabulous. We dined on gourmet sandwiches, salad, pasta salad, fresh fruit, and brownies. Yum!
American Peony Society Lunch in Longwood Gardens' Founders Room
After lunch there was a bit of free time to explore the gardens before the APS Board Meeting. The gardens were awesome. There were endless views of open fields that made you want to just run and sing and play. There was a bell tower with harmonious chimes, a waterfall, a large display fountain, an almost endless conservatory, a topiary garden - the list goes on and on. An entire weekend is not enough time to explore the vastness of Longwood Gardens.
Longwood Gardens Fountain
The Longwood Garden "Peony Garden" was a bit of a disappointment since there were only tree peonies that were past their bloom season. Longwood Gardens did have 3 sections dedicated to herbaceous and intersectional peonies that were donated by the American Peony Society last fall. Surprisingly, many of these plants were in bloom! They also had several wonderful and more mature selections of some existing herbaceous peonies in their perennial border which were just gorgeous.
Me Exploring Longwood Gardens
(I Found the Purple Flowers!)
After the board meeting we enjoyed a "Taste of Philly" picnic dinner with Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and chips for the meal and baked goods and Hershey (PA) chocolate for dessert. All in all, Longwood Gardens is a great place, one I hope to visit again in the future. :-)

2013 American Peony Society Convention Preparation

Wow, I can hardly believe that another peony bloom season is coming to an end. Also tomorrow I will be in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania for the 2013 American Peony Society Convention. It seems this spring has gone by so fast. There's been a lot to do this spring garden wise and life wise. So things have definitely been pretty busy. I am excited to get to the convention, though. I am curious to learn more about the DuPont family and their estate, museum, collections, art, and especially their gardens. I'm also excited to see all of my peony family, to hear the stories of their bloom season, see some of their favorite flowers from their gardens, and hopefully meet some new seedlings that may be introduced in future years. I'm also looking forward to the APS banquet, seed sale, and of course the APS auction! Hopefully some of you will be there too! :-)

Kennett Square, PA