Lilium 2023

[partisangardener]

A bit early for Lilium
But I have a surprise.
Last year I put some Lilium gloriosoides on some of my Hydroponics. For safety reason I took one scale of each clone into some Sphagnum. They readily formed a small bulb. Which is now again on one island outside.
Early this spring I found two clones from one origin frozen dead (-18C°)
Today I saw a fresh leaf of a clone (seed from someone in Shanghai). A pity I have only one clone of this origin.
At least this one is hardy.

Hydroponic growing works well and without heavy frost these Lilies do well. Another three clones I gave a friend started to grow two weeks ago. They look very healthy. One was my first to grow. The other two did not come up the first year. Now they grow on.
I got them last April from Matthias Knoll  from Vienna in vitro grown.
The big deal is I don`t have to fuzz about it after the initial works.
https://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18726.0

[partisangardener]

The bulb is always under some wood or bark above the always moist soil. No other protection apart from controlling slugs and birds.

Another nice surprise seedlings came up now from Lilium canadense I got seeds from late Gerhardt Stickrot.
Nice little bulbs on another island.

[Rick R.]

Nice! 

So these must be the Chinese form of L. gloriosoides?
What time in the growing season did you remove scales to propagate?

[partisangardener]

This is one of the Chinese forms Matthias offers.
I did propagate scales in spring when I got it. They made readily bulbs, but I neglected them for too long so they dried out. The plastic bags were too thin and lost moisture. So I took a new set in autumn when I gave one set of the original clones to a friend to keep it in a frost free greenhouse and left the others outside to the oncoming winter.

Since I treat all my lilies with Boron and propagate them in live Sphagnum they seem to live for ever.

I never succeeded in the past to keep them more than a year. They were always half rotten or moldy  when they reached me from China and I had not the idea to treat lillies with Boron.
https://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=14027.0
Since Chen Yi went out of business I could not find another source for a long time.
So Matthias Knoll gave me the chance to work with healthy bulbs.

[Rick R.]

Thanks, Axel.  And I had forgotten all about your boron thread.  Thanks for refreshing my memory.

[partisangardener]

Today I had a thorough look at my other L. gloriosoides.
I found all of them start to grow, despite the weather. And surprise: one sister clone of the lost ones is alive. It was a bit more sheltered than the lost ones.
So all of them are quite hardy. The sudden frost at beginning of December down to -18 C° out at the open wind exposed place was quite stressful for many plants. The messy weather , the rest of winter did take its toll.
I even found a bulb, sister to the ones in the greenhouse of my friend starting to grow.

[partisangardener]

We had two nights at the mountainside slight frost. Peach flowers turned brown. But this lily does not budge.

[MarcR]

We had two nights at the mountainside slight frost. Peach flowers turned brown. But this lily does not budge.

Axil,

You can protect fruit tree blossoms or young fruit by enclosing them in ziplock bags.

[partisangardener]

Thank you for the advice. 

This place is quite a distance from my home, so if not frozen during the night, they might be cooked by the sun.

[Harry J.]

Hello,

I´d grateful for any help to identify mislabeled Lily. This one was sent to me as L. speciosum var. rubrum, obviously it´s not. But what is it then? My first guess was a longiflorum-hybrid, now I am not that certain anymore. The throat is greenish (or lime) and the same colour shows on the reverse paired with a vague pink lining. It also has brown pollen, not the yellow or orange associated with the species longiflorum. And it´s clearly downfacing. So, is it LT or LO? What traces should I look for? And yes, it´s a Dutch bulb, which also seems confusing, since the Dutch nowadays only breed a few very popular trumpets. The pictures show two different cultivars and I´m not even sure they are the same hybrid!

Thanks in advance for any comments.

[ArnoldT]

My first take is Lilium sargentiae or Lilium sulpherum.  One has hairy filaments the other doesn't.

Scented?
Stem bulbils?

[Harry J.]

Arnold, thanks for your reply.

No bulbils and no hairy filaments, but a sweet scent somewhat like Lilium regale.
I ordered six bulbs, most of them show a greenish reverse; then again a few have this pattern, half white, half pink.
(It´s a bad photo, I know. Had to bring them indoors because of heavy rain ...)

What also confuses me, I got them from a highly commercial source. If bulbs are mislabeled by a company like that, you´d expect to become a non-brainer like Casa Blanca or Stargazer. But not something unusual?

[ArnoldT]

Next guess would be Lilium Leucanthum.

Scented and relatively common.

[Harry J.]

Thanks once more!

The funny things is, my mystery Lily reminds me of some of the old Jan de Graaf-hybrids from the 50´s with a good deal of L. leucanthum in them.

[ArnoldT]

Lilium leucanthum from many years ago.