I haven't been very successful long term with the western North American Lilium species. The Minnesota climate here is pretty opposite from what they need. But I have lots of experience germinating seed, and Lilium bolanderi seems to be an easier one. Martagons are easier yet, similar, but different.
Dr. Deno used quite strict methods for his testing for uniformity. No single group of methods works for all seed, and as you discovered, western North American Lilium species germination requirements don't fit any of the regimes he used. Plants (and seeds) can be very forgiving, and can explain some of the data he recorded for western lilies.
Of all the dryland western lilies, I think L. columbianum ought to be the easiest to grow long term, as it can be successfully grown even in England. L. bolanderi ought to do fine, as long as your summers are dry enough to compensate for the cooler summer temps I think(?) Seattle receives compared to their native haunts.
I never used a fridge or a wine cooler type for germination these seed. Ground temperature here next to the basement wall remains at 50-55°F pretty much year round. So I used a small styrofoam box with three sides remove that fit snugly into a basement corner against the exposed cement wall.
If you can't use your outside ambient temps, you'll need something like a wine fridge.
Darm's treatises on the PBS site are very useful to adapt to your needs. Are you too warm for natural winter germination and growth of L. bolanderi? Also, if you would want to put out a query on the Lilium yahoo group or PBS list, I'm sure your will find members in your area that grow western lilies that could give more advice. Or you could search their archives.
A few tidbits of advice I have learned along the way:
-- -- Once the seed bulblet produces a growing leaf inside baggie, that leaf is incredibly fragile. So I've found it more advantageous to transplant as soon as I see a leaf emerging from the bulb. If you catch it early, you can bury the seed bulb a quarter to half inch below the surface and the leaf will continue to grow and emerge. If you haven't caught the growth stage early enough and the leaf is already greening or forming the part of the leaf that should be green with light, then you need to expose the tip of that leaf to light. If you don't, you risk no above ground growth at all for that season, or growth will emerge a month or two later, and often ambient temps at that time might not be to their liking as much.
-- -- Sometimes actual seed germination (radicle growth - or in this case, hypogeal growth) is very uniform within a week. Sometimes not, within a month or so. I suspect they would pretty much all be uniform if we knew the correct optimal conditions for that particular provenance of a species.
-- -- Even though these species often will grow in clay base soils in the wild, they need very very light soils in a pot.
I wish I had pics of my germinations for these western lilies, but my experimenting was before I had a digital camera.
Regarding books, look into purchasing this Kew Gardening Guide:
Lilies by Victoria Matthews. It's out of print but can be had for cheap used, probably still. I bought mine postpaid for $6 about five years ago.
https://garden.org/thread/view...
