August 23rd Activities
August 23rd will most likely prove to be the busiest day in our club calendar. Not only will we have the daylily club plant returns but there will also be the public plant sale, our noon potluck, a short business meeting, and the live auction of daylilies and iris. In addition, a very special first-time event celebrating the 35th year of CVIDS will be an Iris Club Plant drawing for members who were eligible this year for a club plant. We hope that you will attend and participate in all the festivities. Below is a breakdown of the day's events.

CVIDS Fall Public Plant Sale
As the flyer below indicates, our Fall Public Plant Sale will take place at Jones County Fairgrounds on Saturday, August 23rd, at 9:00-11:30 AM. Thank you to members already signed up for that committee, including Tom and Linda Jones, Sue and Dave Kramer, Heather Harroun and Scott Feddern. Our thanks go also to Ellen Jones for creating the flyer. Please be thinking of which daylilies, iris or any other plants you could donate to sell. Members need to bring their donated plants for the sale between 8:30 and 9 am.  Have the plants labeled, with pictures and priced in even dollar amounts. This is an important fund raiser, and your participation is appreciated. After the sale, CVIDS members will have a potluck noon meal followed by a short business meeting. The agenda will be posted when it bcomes available,

Evaluation, Return and Silent Auction of Returning Club Plants
We are very grateful to those members returning plants this year who submitted their information to Diane Derganz by August 3rd, allowing compilation of their evaluations in the field as well as corresponding photos.

Please review the attached plant evaluation sheets and submit your bids to the committee co-chairperson, Diane Derganz by email, text or phone. Deadline for your bids is at 8 PM on Sunday, August 17th. This year, we have several very reasonably priced daylilies, so please support this important club project. As in the past, we are asking that your bids be in odd amounts (preferably 25 cent increments) to avoid duplications. You will be notified as soon as possible by email or phone if you submitted a winning bid. If more fans are returned than stated on the bid sheets, you still may be a successful bidder, so please check with the committee before you leave that morning. Winners, who will receive the largest double fan of the returned cultivars, must pick up and pay for their plants at the Silent Auction tables in the Youth Center at the Fairgrounds. If unable to do so personally, they should arrange for a proxy to collect and pay for the plants, letting me know of this arrangement. In case of ties, the earliest bid submission wins.

Those members who are bringing back the club plants for the auction are responsible for getting them to Monticello by 10 AM that morning. Your returning bare root daylilies should be clearly individually labeled, with the roots clean and the foliage clipped to about 8 inches. If unable to come yourself, please make alternate arrangements for transport of your plants. Check in your daylilies at the Silent Auction tables just inside the Youth Center doors. Do not leave them there without having your name and plant information recorded! If you have any questions, please call Diane Derganz at 563-349-2008. Thank you & good luck bidding!

Iris Club Plant Drawing
Last, but not least, is the first time Iris Club Plant drawing also being conducted on that Saturday. Diann Pavelka and Jackie Westhoff have purchased iris from Mid-America Gardens for this event in celebration of the 35th anniversary of CVIDS. Members who were eligible for a daylily club plant will also be able to choose an iris from over 50 varieties. These plants are theirs to keep and will not have to be brought back in two years. Those irises not selected in the drawing will then be auctioned off for any member to purchase.

Here is the Powerpoint of the first ever Iris Club Plants, along with a list of those members eligible to receive one at no cost.  Please review them carefully and pick out the ones you'd like.  We'll be doing a lottery-type drawing after our business meeting, the same as we do for the daylilies.  If you can't be present, you'll need to pick a proxy.  Please let Sherry Moffit or Diane Derganz know beforehand. If your name isn't on this list, don't worry because we have extra iris plants that will then be auctioned off (usually at very reasonable prices) and you'll have a chance to purchase them.

Diane has kindly provided an iris check-off list that you can print off and bring to the Iris Club Plant lottery. It contains a minimal amount of info as compared to the above Powerpoint but should help you keep track of the iris you want during the drawing and subsequent live auction.

Live Auction of Any Remaining Daylily and Iris Cultivars
Our day will comclude with a live auction of daylilies and iris cultivars remaining from the silent auction and the iris drawing. All members are urged to participate in the live auction whether they were eligible for a free club plant or not.

Many Apologies from your Webmaster
I apologize that I wasn't able to upload items to our website since late July when, firstly, the website became inoperative because of some behind-the-scenes action by GoDaddy and, secondly, Susie and I traveled to England to attend a Celebration of Life for my late sister Rosemary. My son Matthew and I worked with GoDaddy this morning to restore normal website activity. I hope to catch up with uploading items as soon as I can.

Special Edition of the CVIDS Newsletter covering Region 1's Fargo ND 2025 Regional Meeting
Again, our thanks should go to Nancy Rash and Lyle Moen for creating another July 2025 Special Edition Newsletter, this time covering the recent Region 1 Regional in Fargo, ND.

Annual CVIDS Garden Tour
Our annual CVIDS Garden Tour took place on Saturday, July 12, when 48 guests toured the gardens of Lyn Hoversten Hafner (Iowa City), Gina Snyder (Riverside), and Nancy Rash and Lyle Moen (Washington). To get a first glimpse of what happened on that beautifully sunny day, check out the Special Edition Newsletter that Nancy and Lyle put together!

CVIDS Newsletters June 2025 and July 2025
Please drop Nancy Rash and Lyle Moen an email to thank them for the June 2025 and July 2025 editions of the CVIDS Newsletter! They must invest lots of time and energy to create a newsletter each month. Nancy Rash mentions: "I just love all the Meet the Member articles written by members!  Thank you all for submitting when asked".

2025 Club Plant Distribution & Live Auction
These much anticipated events took place on Saturday, May 17th, at the Floral Hall of the Muscatine County Fairgrounds in West Liberty and, judging by what I've heard so far, were a great success. Our Hospitality Chair Nancy Rash asked that I post this message from her: "Thank you for your participation at the May 17, 2025 Club Plant Distribution.  I appreciate all the members that attended and helped with the set-up, clean-up and implementation of the daylily distribution and auction.  A huge thank you to all the contributed to the “breakfast” with food and drink for the morning.  We had great refreshments!  Thanks!" 

I'd like to thank Lyle Moen for providing the above photos. A big shout-out should go to Sue Kramer for selecting and ordering this year's daylily club plants. Thank you very much, Sue! There were several additional introductions from Judy Davisson and Sandy Holmes that brought our total number to 45 cultivars. To access the entire list of plants, please click here.  Many thanks go to Colleen Hansen for her hard work on our behalf. Click here for a PowerPoint that she created that shows the beauty of these cultivars and lists their key features. And last but certainly not least, our club president Diane Derganz has kindly provided a list of the destinations to which the Club Plants and auction plants traveled at the end of the fun day.

Muscatine Plant Sale
Partnering with the Muscatine Master Gardeners and Muscatine Garden Club, CVIDS co-hosted a Plant Sale on Saturday, May 10th, at the Muscatine County Environmental Learning Center Discovery Park in Muscatine. This was an ideal opportunity to purchase established perennials, registered iris and daylilies, houseplants and beautiful annuals on a beautiful sunny morning. Many thanks to Sherry and Lynn Moffit for the following photos.

May 2025 CVIDS Newsletter
Here is our May Newsletter from Nancy and Lyle with several very interesting articles and pictures from our members for you to enjoy. Thank you to all who contributed to this excellent newsletter!

"Photographing Daylilies - Tips for Amateurs"
I am delighted to announce that Sherry Moffit has kindly offered to share with us both her recent PowerPoint and personal notes from her presentation on April 12th. (Webmaster's note: The PowerPoint file is large and may take 15-30 seconds to open up! It's very much worth the wait!). Thank you very much, Sherry! Members who were unable to attend the Wilton meeting, and those who did, will now have the opportunity to better prepare themselves to submit photos to the 2025 Betty Miller Photo Contest in November.

CVIDS' April 2025 Meeting
Our April 2025 meeting took place on Saturday, April 12th, in the Wilton Community Room in Wilton, IA. Sherry Moffit presented on "Photographing Daylilies - Tips for Amateurs". Subsequently, Sue Kramer and Colleen Hansen gave an overview of the 2025 Daylily Club Plants. Here is the final list (April 7th) for the 2025 daylily club plants to be distributed at our May 17th meeting in West Liberty. Members qualifying for the daylily and iris club plants are listed here. The afternoon concluded with a business meeting, during which a second vote was passed, allowing the Bylaws to be amended to read "Article VI, Section 2. To conduct Society business at a meeting, the majority of those in attendance, including those attending meetings via Zoom, will constitute a quorum". Click here for the agenda. The minutes will be posted as soon as they become available.

We're Still Looking for Volunteers
As the saying goes: "Many hands make light work". Club President Diane Derganz has kindly provided an updated list of committees with members who have signed up or continue to participate.  There are still openings on several committees, and we encourage all members to be on a committee.   So, if you don't see your name on this sheet, please contact her or any officer to get you signed up.  Many times, being on a committee might only result in having a one-time commitment for a particular event.  Please support our club by joining a committee!

April 2025 CVIDS Newsletter
Can you believe it? We've reached the end of the first quarter of 2025 already! Spring is just around the corner, and with it comes the April 2025 CVIDS Newsletter, thanks to co-editors Lyle Moen and Nancy Rash. Grab yourself a cup of your favorite beverage and enjoy the many interesting articles in this month's edition!

March 2025 CVIDS Club Meeting
Our March meeting took place on March 8 at the Coralville Public Library. Nineteen members were present in-person, and eight members attended via Zoom. Following the social time and potluck, Diane Derganz & Nancy Carlisle gave presentations on the “Stout Silver Medal Award for Daylilies & Dykes Award for Iris – History and How They're Chosen". Jackie Westhoff then talked about “Iris pests and prevention”, focusing on how to recognize and deal with the iris borer. The afternoon concluded with a business meeting (for agenda, click here) including a roll call in which members shared the number of Stout Award winners growing in their gardens. Having 38 in their garden, Sue and Dave Kramer were declared the Stout contest winners. As a prize, they will get their choice of a 2nd club plant after all are distributed and before the auction begins. They will not have to bring it back. Meeting minutes can be accessed here. Thank you, Cari! The minutes will require approval at the April meeting. Many thanks to Diane, Nancy Carlisle and Jackie for their presentations! Heather will be presenting at the Muscatine Art of Gardening event on March 15. She could also use some volunteers to help man the table. If interested, please contact her.

A big Thank You to Barb and Heather for making their presentations available here for all to see and to Cari for taking the minutes!

The First CVIDS Newsletter of the Year!
Many thanks to Lyle Moen and Nancy Rash for creating the January 2025 CVIDS Newsletter.

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