Featured Speaker
Everyone should be obsessed with something, and for Nikki Schmith, that obsession is a twenty-year love affair with the daylily.
She is the new president of the American Hemerocallis Society and also serves as a senior exhibition judge, a garden judge and an exhibition clinic instructor. Locally, she is a member of the Central Illinois Daylily Society, and a past president of the Greater St. Louis Daylily Society.
She and her entire garden, which now contains a rotating collection of around 500 daylily cultivars, hundreds of other perennials and various unique container plantings, is located in Worden, Illinois. Her previous gardens in Michigan were featured in The Michigan Gardener. Nikki's written work and photography have been featured in several regional and national publications, as well as the flagship magazine for daylily enthusiasts published by the American Hemerocallis Society, The Daylily Journal. The British Hemerocallis Society regularly features her photography in their Bulletins.
Nikki likes to integrate technology as a fun gardening tool. Whether it is using PowerPoint, Camtasia, Facebook, Photoshop, Photo Story or Blogger, she likes to share new ways to use your computer and your daylilies together. In her 9 to 5 job, she is a trainer and education specialist for Ford Motor Company, proudly working virtually for Ford's World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
But her "real job" is a mother, wife, daughter and daylily addict in an amazing family. She is a five-time Best In Show winner of AHS accredited exhibition shows and has won head table awards in many other shows. It is no secret that exhibiting daylilies and being a daylily ambassador is her passion. She's a fierce and fiery, tender and true spirit. A wild and wonderful one-of-kind girl who lives life cranked to 11.
Check out Nikki's blog: a girl and her garden
Nikki's Program
"DIGGING THE INTERNET" An interesting, internet road trip looking for daylilies! This journey will make stops at Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, the AHS website, and the Members Portal. We will visit other daylily related websites, blogs and auctions and answer some questions about the great benefits for all kinds of sellers, collectors, photographers, historians and enthusiasts. Audience members will be asked to submit questions related to daylilies and technology before the presentation and Nikki will select several to answer live. This is your chance to ask the question you have been too scared to ask before about technology and daylilies. The trip is full of fun pictures of a lot of people, too. Even folks who are already tech savvy will enjoy the ride!