Region 4 Fall Newsletter

Region 4 Fall Newsletter - Daylilies in the Great Northeast

Daylilies in the Great Northeast
(Editor Marlene Harmon)

Dive into the Fall 2025 issue of Daylilies in the Great Northeast, packed with Region 4 news and officer reports, club updates from across our seven states and six provinces, award-winning cultivars and hybridizers, newsletter and photo contest winners, and more.

Inside you’ll also find feature articles on preserving ADS archives, planning successful plant sales, hosting open gardens, and managing hemerocallis gall midge—plus highlights from the 2025 Stout Medal winner and other Region 4 standouts.

Congratulations to the 2025 AHS Region 4 Cultivar Award Winners!

Rich Howard's 'Explosion in the Paint Factory' Wins the Stout Silver Medal

Rich Howard's 'Explosion in the Paint Factory' Wins the Stout Silver Medal
Photo by Leslie Platt

About Rich

Rich Howard is an award-winning daylily hybridizer based in central Connecticut, known for breeding hardy, northern-grown cultivars at CT Daylilies. He has introduced a number of nationally recognized plants, most notably Explosion in the Paint Factory (2013), a late-blooming unusual form with striking broken color that has earned multiple American Daylily Society honors over the years.

Stout Silver Medal of the American Daylily Society

About the Stout Silver Medal

The Stout Silver Medal is the highest honor a daylily cultivar can receive from the American Daylily Society. Only one cultivar is awarded the medal each year, based on votes from accredited Garden Judges who have observed the plant in gardens over multiple seasons.

Named in memory of Dr. Arlow Burdette Stout—often called the father of modern daylily breeding—the medal recognizes a cultivar that has proven itself both beautiful and dependable in real gardens, not just in a single location. To even be eligible, a daylily must first earn Honorable Mention and then the Award of Merit; only after that, and a waiting period of at least three years, can it be considered for the Stout Silver Medal.

For gardeners and hybridizers alike, “Stout Medal winner” is a shorthand for a truly exceptional daylily—one that has stood out nationwide for performance, consistency, and garden appeal over many years.

Ellen Laprise's 'Isabelle Rose' Wins the Lambert/Webster Award

Ellen Laprise's 'Isabelle Rose' Wins the Lambert/Webster Award
Photo by Patrick Dooley

About Ellen

Ellen Laprise is a Massachusetts-based daylily hybridizer and owner of Partridge Hill Gardens, where she focuses on hardy, high-performing cultivars for New England gardens.

Her well-known introduction, Isabelle Rose (2009), has become a standout unusual form daylily, noted for its tall scapes, strong bud count, and consistently beautiful blooms—and has gone on to earn the coveted Lambert/Webster Award.

AHS Lambert/Webster Award

About the Lambert/Webster Award

The Lambert/Webster Award is the American Daylily Society’s top honor for unusual form daylilies. Given annually as a bronze medal, it recognizes the most outstanding cultivar in the Unusual Form class, based on votes from accredited Garden Judges.

Established to encourage breeding beyond traditional round or spider forms, the award specifically celebrates crispate (pinched or twisted), cascading, and spatulate daylilies whose long, dramatic segments fall outside the Spider and Spider Variant classes.

It is named for two pioneers of these forms—John Lambert, known for his diploids, and Richard Webster, known for his tetraploids—honoring their influence on the development of today’s Unusual Form daylilies.

Region 4 Honorable Mention Award Winners

The Honorable Mention (HM) is the first national performance award a registered daylily cultivar can earn from the American Daylily Society. Within the Society’s awards ladder, the HM is often described as the “first stamp of approval”—a signal that a daylily is both beautiful and a reliable garden plant. Cultivars that earn Honorable Mention become eligible to move on to higher honors such as the Award of Merit.

Honorable Mention

‘Alina’ daylily by Mike Huben (New Hampshire) wins Honorable Mention
Photo by Chris Petersen

‘Alina’ (2021)

Mike Huben (New Hampshire)

Honorable Mention

‘Autumn Prince’ daylily by Arlow Stout Wins Honorable Mention

‘Autumn Prince’ (1941)

Arlow Stout

Honorable Mention

‘O Positive’ daylily by Mike Huban Wins Honorable Mention

‘O Positive’ (2013)

Mike Huban (New Hampshire)

Honorable Mention

‘Starman’ daylily by Rich Howard Wins Honorable Mention

‘Starman’ (2022)

Rich Howard (Connecticut)

Service Award Winners

Service awards honor the people who give extraordinary time, talent, and energy to the daylily community. At both the regional and national levels, these awards recognize members whose sustained volunteer work—organizing events, leading clubs, mentoring new growers, serving on boards, and promoting daylilies to the public—has made a lasting difference.

AHS Regional Service Award

Russ Allen Wins AHS Regional Service Award

Russ Allen (CDS)

AHS Club-Level Service Award

Lis Murphy Wins AHS Club-Level Service Award

Lis Murphy (NEDS)

Cameron Stern Wins the Mabel Matthews Scholarship

Cameron Stern Wins the Mabel Matthews Scholarship

Congratulations Cameron Stern (NEDS)!

This fund is made possible through the generosity of Mabel Matthews. Applicants demonstrate dedicated service to an AHS club or at an AHS regional level.

AHS Photography Award Winners

Mildred Schlumpf Individual Bloom

Greg Haggett (CDS) - Wins Mildred Schlumpf Individual Bloom with Four Eyes

Greg Haggett (CDS)

Mildred Schlumpf Landscape

Greg Haggett (CDS) - Wins Mildred Schlumpf Landscape

Greg Haggett (CDS)

Alice Peal Wins the Artistic Garden Image

Alice Peal Wins the Artistic Garden Image

Congratulations Alice Peal!

Established in 2010 and first awarded in 2011, images in this category should include all or part of a daylily bloom. This category may include, but is not limited to: images of bloom segments or parts of a bloom, profile shots of a bloom or blooms, garden art, garden critters and images taken around the garden.

Attention all Region 4 Pollen Dabbers!

Daylilies in the Great Northeast

Nominate one of your introductions for the 2026 R4 Hybridizer Award! Get all details and rules here

  • Deadline for submission March 15