There was much discussion about the low turn out and the shrinking membership in local clubs.

The usual method when a business or organization moves into a declining slope is to try to do better what has always been done. For example make the cut leaf show better, it may be that cut leaf shows do not interest new growers. If that is true using cut glass vases to display leaves will not generate more interest.

This is not a gripe or rant just a thought leading to questions that I don't have answers to. The fact is membership is declining!

EO,

My observation is the clubs membership, and I hope I donÂt offend anyone, is older. I think it is hard to find young people that have the time or interest in a garden club. IÂm just as guilty as the next not taking the time to get involved, even though IÂm a member of our local and AHS.

Then thereÂs the cost factor. Not that 50 bucks for AHS or something less for your local is a lot of money, but folks on a fixed income and with all the raising prices has put a pinch on the pocketbook.

To keep a club alive you need to get the young interested plus new membership of any age of course.

I don't have the answer either, education? Start with your local garden centers to set up programs? What type of programs? Local leaf shows - who other than the person with entries rally goes and looks if you don't advertize to the general public?

What are the answers - don't know either.

Deb

"Local leaf shows - who other than the person with entries really goes and looks if you don't advertize to the general public?"
Deb

When I was involved locally we did cutleaf shows and I participated and worked to raise the money which was a bunch or the lions share of the budget. We rented space in a mall with thousands of people passing by and I didn't see public interest in the leaves, they didn't stop and look or ask questions about a cutleaf show.

I stopped a few people and inquired what they thought and everyone that I talked to who where standing off just looking said it seemed silly to them. So, I conclude that cutleaf shows are for the collectors not the general public and in fact did not "educate" them. We can look at a leaf and visualize a full size plant but a non-hosta person can't do that so what does the novice learn from a cutleaf show?

If you didn't know anything about hosta which of these photos would interest you? Remember, you donÂt know a hosta from a brick. One simple, the other a bit more varied and a leaf.

EO,
You are right, the general public could care less. I guess it's for the Hostaholic. Even when you bring up to nursery owners to expand their selections you get push back. Hosta is the number one perennial but seems there's just not enough to get folks involved in clubs.

I got started by receving one as a gift but I've seen so many on this forum admit to getting hooked by just pics from you, Ken and all the others. So you are correct, a single leaf or full scale plant...full scale wins them over!

Deb

a single leaf or full scale plant...full scale wins them over!
Deb

I don't know but if asked to put on a show for the public I would set up a landscape in a mall or anywhere one could get traffic walking by featuring hosta prominently. Plus a large screen showing other "GARDENS" featuring hosta.

Selling small plants that are displayed full or near full sized in the display as a fund raiser.

I also am interested in the convention last week. How was the attendance? How were the gardens?

I suppose I'm one of those young AHS and club members that drifted away after attending three or four conventions. I'm still very interested in hostas but I just don't have the time. A full time job in todays corporate environment is a 60 to 80 hour a week commitment. It has taken me two months of weekends just to get my garden back in shape this spring.

I know alittle about how much work it takes to plan a convention. I trust that membership was sufficient for the local club to cover expenses.

hostargreat - I wish someone would chime in about the gardens too. The last convention I went to was in Philly. So I missed Indy and St Louis.

I hear you on the "corporate environment" and the weekends in the garden. We're still behind in the back yard.

But it's still so rewarding...something about digg'n in the dirt.

Deb

EO, I think the way to boost AHS interest is to bring in your kids!
The younger you can get them interested, you feed the future of hostadom. I took a 12yr old last year to Indy. She choose leaves to enter, Mary Ann helped her as far as instruction on how to clean and stage them. She won ribbons, that was all it took! In the vending area she choose plants she thought would make good parents, we bought, she hybridized later in the summer. I admit, she was unsuccessful last season to produce seed, but atleast the interest was there! This is the future! Pretty simple really, you just need to cultivate it a bit, apply the same practice with the young people as we do with crossing the hosta.

"We're still behind in the back yard."
Deb

I don't allow myself that thought, my garden is my sandbox, I play in my way and enjoy it my way without regret about what I didn't do.

I try to celebrate what I did do and discount what I didn't do.

Good philosophy EO...sometimes you get overwhelmed and miss out on all the things that are right in front of you...like the Hosta you thought was a goner, turns up and fools you.

Deb

"EO, I think the way to boost AHS interest is to bring in your kids! "
justaysam

This is the type of thinking outside the box that can work, again I make the same point;
"Doing the same thing expecting a different result is a definition of insanity."

The Daylily society did some of this but I was only a visitor and never knew the result.

Demonstrating at schools might have a better result than leaf shows in a mall.

I took a 3 year-old neighbors son on a tour naming hosta as we went, then asked him which was his favorite shown below, he really liked this H.'Sentimental Journey', it was his favorite. Now, when he comes over he visits his "favorite" to see how it is doing!

when i was 4 we joined 4h and grew the 4h gardens (like 4 packs of seeds i think) - it was fun we all got ribbons for one stupid reason or another but it didn't matter we won a ribbon.
one time there were cosmos seeds in the pack - still a favorite

I take my kids to the garden centers with me and allow them to pick out a plant when i take them, then we plant them in the yard and they really like it. my daughter just got the worst looking plox i have ever seen (nice plant, ugly flowers) but she loves it and wanted to plant it next to 'her' fat albert spruce. she likes hosats a lot because she knows they are my favorite. guardian angel is 'her' hosta. she doesn't call them pastas anymore ;~(

my 4 year old son really just likes digging holes (so he helps plant all of the new plants) - and sometimes watering but the watering can is heavy when it is full (i don't tell him we really don't need to water with the irrigation system)
he told a guest he mulched the flower beds by himself this year. hahaha i have spread 30 yards of mulch so far this year and need at least 30 more.

Greenguy, great job those are the things that children come back to in their 30's?

BTW, I've already called our local school and offered to do a 4H type project if they want.

My 14th Convention and it was thoroughly enjoyable and inspirational. Kudos to the St. Louis Hosta Society for their hard work and friendly reception!
We went early, to take advantage of the optional tour of MOBOT. It had been several years since I had been there and wanted to see what new areas and plants had been added. That was a disappointment, as it appeared virtually unchanged from my previous visit.
We visited 8 gardens(7 tour & one optional) and all were in suberb condition. I use a 35mm SLR and slide film, so not able to share.(sorry!)
One of the gardeners on the tour related that he had visited Wally World and purchased 500 Styrofoam ice chests to protect his emerging Hostas during a predicted freeze earlier in the spring. Dedication by a Certified 'Holic!

Didn't hear any of the exchanges about low turnout, guess I was too busy discussing Hostas and gardening in general and trying to learn more about the subject.
Considering the exorbitant cost of fuel and airline travel, I would consider the 425 registered attendees a successful Convention! Granted, there have been more in attendance at some Conventions, but those were the good old days, when gasoline was less than ½ today's cost and cheap airfares were commonplace. Household expenses for food and other necessities were also much less.
I also must mention the St Louis Hosta Society arranged for some of the tastiest meals I've enjoyed at any AHS Convention and there were NONE of the dreaded box lunches, being replaced by Luncheon buffets.
Congratulations and a job well done! Please accept our thanks.
Rb

Rb thanks for the overview. It sounds like it was a great time.

When I went to convention in Philly I was disappointed in Longwood Gardens and would of rathered taken the city tour. Longwood was under construction in parts and I guess I just expected it to be pristine (faulty thinking on my part). But the rest of the convention was worth it.

You are so right with the cost of everything. I'm in Ohio so next year in Lansing it's not a bad drive and I'm going to be there - looking forward to it too.

Deb

Hopefully I will have pics to post soon, but I had a wonderful time reconnecting with old friends, mostly hanging with the Iowa Hallson's people who I met at the Des Moines convention in 2004, and Jim/Ken from Chicago. I clerked in the leaf show, entered three seedlings that got non-blue ribbons but were critiqued favorably in front of a big crowd, by Dr. Bob Olson. I got a piece of a streaked Fragrant Blue shared with Roger, in the auction.

Chuck Zdeb was the MC, and really funny. Mike Shadrack gave a very funny talk on hosta photography, and Doug Beilstein did one on hybridizing, and there were some I missed, including a talk on minis by Warren Pollock. I agree the food was great.
Bob Solberg got the award (Eunice Fisher award?) for hybridizing, and selected Ginsu Knife as his favorite introduction. Don Deane got the Alex J Summers award and selected Silver Bay as his favorite plant, one of his introductions that holds the blue color better than any others he knows of. Josh Spece got an award or two for his writing and contributions to the AHS. Other awards were for people I didn't know.

Michigan next year is sponsoring a Limerick writing contest, sounds fun.

A lasting memory from the end for me was seeing one of the optional tour gardens I went to on Sunday I think Dr. Paul and Laj' Bonstead, was right up there with the best but not on the bus tour because they had not been in the society when the commitments were made to the tour three years ago. Amazing layout on steep hills and aluminum looking statuary of a Horse, Eagle, Lions heads on a cool gazebo featured prominently.
Wow!
At Jim Weidman's garden Trudy and Bruce asked me to show them how I do crosses, because the Galaxy seedling they bought had two flowers open, so I found Inniswood and Big Mama in flower, and pollinated and marked the flowers on Galaxy.

Oh and I bought a lot of plants, this year they came from Lee's Gardens, Naylor Creek, Hilltop, Jack Barta, and Silvers/Ebert. We (Brittany and Joan from our northcoast club drove with me) also stopped at Seeley's in Columbus on the way there and got some big ones.

It was everything I was hoping for and more!

Dave