Lilium 2017

[Tony Willis]

Lilium chalcedonicum, Katara Pass, Greece

[Maggi Young]

It may just be the time of day - but the colour makes that flower look deliciously tasty!

[Giles]

Tony,
How do you grow it?
I understood it to be hard to please.
Giles

[Tony Willis]

I grow them in a mixture of JI and grit in clay pots plunged in a sand cold frame. I grow all my bulbs the same way.They do not seem too difficult here but the frame keeps the excess water off them in winter

[Giles]

Thanks, Tony.
I'll add it to my list of things worth trying.

[Mavie]

Hi,
I have my lilies mainly growing in-vitro and am focussing on the propagation from seeds and mericloning. Almost 100 different species require about 3.000 flasks to be filled. I ignore hybrids and concentrate on species only.
Itīs time to say thanks to that community for sending seeds to my lab.
bye from Austria

Matthias

[Maggi Young]

Welcome, Matthias!  Your project  is on a very big scale - you will be busy for years!

[ArnoldT]

Matthias:

Would you like some stem bulbils from Lilium sargentiae?

[Dick Cheung]

some lilies of 2017


Lilium maculatum var. bukosanense


Lilium speciosum var. clivorum


Lilium auratum var. virginale


Lilium speciosum var. punctatum

[Mavie]

Welcome, Matthias!  Your project  is on a very big scale - you will be busy for years!

Thanks, I donīt think propagating lilies in-vitro will show more difficulties than those I am already faced with. I keep this plant-family even for pretty easy adjusting and coping with breeding it artificially. I look back on experiences of propagating tropical orchids, have done that for more than 12 years, surveyed and kept more than 2.000 different species in 15.000 flasks to my best (and exhausting) times. Many, many millions of seedlings which had to be replated every 4-8 months. Lilies donīt even ask for being replated.

Similar to orchids is that both plant-families are threatened being wiped out due to 2 reasons, robbed in the wild/destruction of natural habitats and - what I personally keep for a far higher risk -  taking species for hybrid-aims. When I bought the first species-bulbs I didnīt expect that even the usual ones like regale, tsingtauense, henryi, even leichtlinii turned out to be hybrids finally, polluted  with other lily genes just to care for a better resistance or tolerance, getting taller or carrying more buds.
So first hurdles certainly have been to get to real and pure plant-material, be it seeds, bulbs, scales or even plant-leaves (from which a meristem-culture can be launched, too).  Networking helped a lot coming over that obstacle. 
Next fact is the hybrid-stuff. If one crosses species A with species B one should be conscious that not even the absolute modern technology can split the genes of the hybrid back to the parental species-forms. When crossing hybrid AB with species A, for instance, the result so closely ressembles species A that almost all plant-keepers would keep the results for a species, but it is none. So wrong tags is a real problem and maybe will be for good.
Plan is to keep almost all lilium-species in vitro, thus under sterile conditions, propagating rather clones than seedlings . If lilies react similar as orchids I can keep them in-vitro for years, if not decades when reduced to the tissue of „callus“. From callus one can regenerate plants whenever thereīs the need doing. 
Next is to care for a sufficiant clone-diversity to avoid in-breeding.
What I didnīt expect that even those lilies used to cool conditions do fine here … as far as they are inflasked. So what it takes is simply a handful of people caring for the propagation and others for the culture in pots or beds. Unlikely I will succeed in that here in Austria. My souliei-flasks are placed below cool-bags for dropping the temperature of actually plus 36°C, henricii, yapingense require the same during the season now. Collaboration and banning selfishness. Plants donīt belong to me, not to you, they are just given. So what I will be seeking for are people who raise these plants after my task has finished, swearing these will never be taken or used for any hybrid-aims. So I am casting my eyes up to Northern areas where temperatures will be less cruel than here in Austria. My green thumb is restricted to lab-work, but it makes fun and can also lead to a kind of addiction.

[Tony Willis]

Lilium canadense red form

[Steve Garvie]

Nice plants Tony!
My red canadense are more of an orange unfortunately.

[Giles]

Lilium monadelphum (or similar) at Evenley Wood.
About 2m tall, and rather fine...

[Maggi Young]

In the latest Bulb Log, #30-17  Ian Young reviews the excellent new Lily book by Pontus Wallsten :
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2017Jul261501064079BULB_LOG_3017.pdf

[Giles]

A fine stand of L.superbum at Evenley Wood.
These have been growing for the past couple of months..  ..with the evil vigour of deranged horsetails..
They are taller than me.