Oh good! I thought you meant you were just now planting the pardalinum seed. Since you have already planted them 7 weeks ago, leave the outside. They will sprout in their own time under normal conditions that they would get in the wild. This is far better than trying to coax them with artificial methods.

The martagon and bulbiferum seeds don't need any cold to germinate the seed. But the cold can't hurt them, and may help them germinate more uniformly when the time is right. They will germinate when it is warm, 60-70F, and produce their tiny seed bulb underground. They won't grow any leaves until the following growing season, after they have experienced their cold treatment through the winter. So this year, you will have pots of live martagon seedlings, but nothing that shows above ground (no leaves). Occasionally, one might send up a leaf prematurely this year, but 95% of them won't.

Thank you Rick so much!. I feel relieved of extra chores in getting myself started with my wild species lilies. Yes, the best is to let nature take its course, and occasionaly check that the pots remain slightly moist during the dry season which starts here in December and ends in mid April with the first rains, first hard frosts and a considerably drop in temperatures.

Arturo

Arturo, Rick - this is all excellent advice and information that has passed between you both. I have been very busy here this past month and haven't had much time to contribute to the Forum, but there is nothing that has been said that I would disagree with. I agree with Rick to keep the pardalinum, pardalinum x kelloggi and mackliniae outside in their pots and let them germinate in their own time. The Western American species might take a little while to push up their first leaf. They are a bit quicker than Rick describes for martagon's above, but they could take up to 2-3 months to germinate and then 2-3 months to push up a leaf. I have seedlings of several WAH types and they all do well, they just need some time. I would expect the same to be the case in Bariloche. I had a few seeds of L. parryi planted earlier this year they probably took 5 months before anything appeared above ground. I had almost given up on them to be honest. My experience with martagons is as Rick describes. I recently moved some from pots into a nursery bed and I was surprised at the golf-ball sized bulbs whereas the seedling stalks were relatively weak. Hopefully these won't sulk for too long from being moved.
You also mentioned 'Fusion'. I have these and grow them in the same bed as my WAHs, and also davidii, dauricum, speciosum uchida, etc. They are in a position where they get almost full sun all day in the summer. They are on the sunny side of a somewhat part-shaded bed on the north side of the house. Drainage is good, but we also have hinoki cypress and rhododendrons in the bed too, as well as primula and some heathers, and we irrigate this in summer when it is dry. So the growing conditions are moist and well-drained. The base of the plants would be somewhat shaded, but the tops of the ca. 5ft / 1.5m-tall plants are in full sun. They do well for me under these conditions. I imagine that they should do well for you too in Bariloche, as you are a bit colder in winter than me, but certainly not as cold as Rick I expect. Let us know when your seedlings emerge, Arturo. We wish you every success!!

Steve, I really appreciate your popping into my update giving your busy schedule! However I needed to provide what was happening on this end, since both of you have graciously provided information and materials to get myself started.
Regularly when tulips are in bloom ( mine are doing that in one bed) we have the tulip season snowfall: this morning everything was whitewashed with just dash. It is still cold out here.
Steve, do you know if 'Fusion' has been used into further crossings? Where does one find about Lilium lineages? ( if that exists). For roses, its HMF ( also clematis and peonies) for irises its the AIS iris wiki but I haven't detected a site that collects all about Lilium, apart from the RHS Lilium registry which as far as I can tell, seems to have its focus on the naming of varieties.

Arturo

Arturo, there was quite a bit of discussion regarding Fusion on a thread from last year: https://garden.org/thread/go/1.... I have a few seedlings growing from the Fusion x pardalinum cross I made in the summer of 2020. At that time crosses the other way (pardalinum x Fusion, i.e. using Fusion pollen) were always unsuccessful. This year I didn't make further crosses of 'Fusion' x pardalinum but concentrated on using pollen from yellow and apricot-colored Western American Hybrids (WAH). I did this in an attempt to get some lighter colors into the cross. I made several protected crosses and while some pods never set seed I did end up with several with a small number of normal seeds with viable embryos and then a number of questionable seeds and lots of chaff. I understand that Holger Kuehne in Germany has also made crosses from his WAHs onto Fusion with the same mixed success this year too.

This summer I also attempted protected crosses of yellow/apricot WAH x Fusion as I am still unsure whether Fusion pollen is sterile or not. WAH sibling crosses of yellow/apricot WAH were very successful with large, full pods with a large number of viable seeds. In contrast, the pods of yellow/apricot WAH x Fusion were less-well developed and often 'lumpy', with a few seeds with good embryos and lots of chaff. So this makes me think that Fusion pollen is potentially viable. I have a slight nagging doubt as to whether some WAH sibling pollen may have got onto the stigma before applying the Fusion pollen and covering it with its tinfoil cap. I realize, though, that if there was some mixing of pollen then this might be what is needed for Fusion pollen to set seed? It was also unusually warm and dry this summer and this may have played a part in the apparent success of the yellow/apricot WAH x Fusion cross. I have planted the seeds and I'm interested to see what will come of these. I expect the seeds to germinate in a IH manner, but it could well be spring of next year before any leaves are produced.

Regarding germination of Western American Hybrids, I have been successful in planting these in small pots or flats in September/October and keeping these in a frost-free greenhouse until late-December (roughly 8-10 weeks at temperatures of say between 60sF on sunny days and 40sF on cool days/nights, 16C to 4C). I then put the pots outside in a cold frame to protect from rain for another 8-10 weeks for January and February. My winter temperatures are typically 50F-30F / 10C to -1C, with some days slightly warmer and some nights slightly colder. In March I will bring the pots back into the greenhouse and this is when I will see growth start above ground. This method has worked for me with the WAH I have. However, I have been unsuccessful with canadense using this method as I think it doesn't get cold enough and the seeds rot over the winter. I have somewhat mixed success with martagons, and also L. columbianum native to Washington State, too for what I believe to be the same reason. I should add that I use a mix of regular store-bought potting soil (about 70%) into which I mix ground pumice and sand (15% of each), though as I measure this out by the handful I must say that I am not fastidious about the precise concentrations. The main thing I strive for is very good drainage to prevent rot.

I hope this explanation has helped! I continue to be interested in Fusion and potential crosses as I think this will increase the ease of growing WAHs more widely in other areas. The challenge will be to see whether lighter pinks or yellow/apricot colors can be bred into the Fusion line. It will be a few years still before my seedlings with Fusion will come into flower. Although Fusion has been around for a few years now I am not aware of any early crosses made that are flowering already, so this could be an interesting avenue of hybridization to pursue. All the best. Steve

Steve, I do agree that "helper pollen" might work. I was talking with Judith F.about this and cut pistil pollination once. I was curious what was actually happening to make these methods work. Now I don't remember what she said about the helper pollen, I'm sure I wrote it down somewhere......
But as a relative newbie in the subject, I had thought the cut pistil approach was merely to reduce the length of the pistil that pollen must travel through. It seemed logical to me that if I was pollinating with pollen from a short pistil species, that pollen would be genetically predisposed to not need to travel a long distance. Pollinating onto a long pistil, that that pollen might not traverse the entire length of the long pistil to fertilize the ovary. Not so, says Judith. The reason for cut pistil pollination is solely to (hopefully) facilitate fertilization of incompatible (or somewhat incompatible) pollen, and has nothing to do with making a shorter distance for pollen to travel. And where I was thinking a cut pistil might then be a half or quarter of its original length.... wrong again. Judith says to cut it as short as possible, like a millimeter or less.

Today I received a box from Buggy Crazy. How is that I forget just how enormous and amazing her bulbs are. Honestly, there's nothing quite like Buggy delivery day. I placed a large orange here for a comparison purposes.

Nice, but what did you get?

Probably some trumpets. The bulbs are purple and large.

It's a Griesbach seedling she had she called G 1. Came from Robert Griesbach dig. It will join its friends.

We are in Covid lockdown..A positive infected drug addict flew from mainland Australia, to Tas ,Escaped isolation services & went visiting people without a care for anybody..So sad , but getting a lot done, at home 😊

Leftwood said:

Keep the bulbs warm (55° or more) and plant them outside in mid to late summer. Planting them outside now or in early summer could begin the cold treatment process because the soil has not warmed sufficiently, and you risk them finishing their cold treatment in the fall before winter arrives, and they might sprout in the fall.

Rick, I emptied some of my dried hybrids bags and I found that three never made the N/S transition and just rotted away. I then decided that my best way of storing those bulbs until correct fall planting time arrives, would be keeping them warm inside and store them in a box. I could have them placed inside a layer of wood shavings with some fungicide powder to avoid rot. I don't know how moist they ought to be stored though. The box can be kept in a dark warm attic with temps in the range of 55ºF daytime. Since that side attic is next to my kitchen I can regularly check for their well being, however pros or cons around this strategy are more than welcomed. Of course the final stage of my learning curve is to figure out when should be the best time to purchase these pre-treated Lilium bulbs. Perhaps receiving them mid July, placing them in pots inside my warm greenhouse until ready to go out in mid October, keeping them in bags the first readjustment season and let them finish off near to normal outside. Finally place bulbs in ground late fall. Hopefully let them multiply naturally... TYiA

Arturo

hampartsum said:Perhaps receiving them mid July, placing them in pots inside my warm greenhouse until ready to go out in mid October, keeping them in bags the first readjustment season and let them finish off near to normal outside. Finally place bulbs in ground late fall. Hopefully let them multiply naturally.

I think this is a good plan. Probably, some lilies might stay green all the way until your natural fall, while others will die back much earlier. Not to worry. Some of this is due to the type of lily - trumpets and orientpets naturally tend to hold their green stems longer. You might find that some of the lilies that died back early start to grow in the fall, especially from young stem bulblets that grew as new bulbs that formed that growing season. Not to worry about this, either ((and there is nothing you can do about it, anyway). The young bulblets will grow again the following spring. If the mother bulb grows in fall, it might too, but I think more likely it will just skip growing the following summer season while it finishes its transition to the southern hemisphere.

"Warm and dry, but not too dry" is a tricky thing to do, and as long as the bulbs don't receive the cold treatment they need to sprout normally, it's not such a big deal. If the soil, or wood shavings, or peat, or sand, or whatever media you have them in, is moist enough that the bulbs grow some new roots, but the amount of root growth is curtailed by the dryness - then that is probably the most ideal. No roots is fine, too, as long as the bulbs stay firm. I find that with fresh bulbs that I dig, if I shake off most all of the dirt, let it all get completely bone dry, then seal it up in a plastic bag, that seems to work well. The moisture from the hydrated bulbs will seep into the dry air and create a bit of humidity in the bag that will aid with preventing further dry out of the bulbs, yet not so much as to support fungal disease. When you periodically check on the bulbs, watch for any change in color of your media that would indicate a buildup of moisture. Condensation of water on the sides of the bag definitely indicates too much moisture.

Rick,
Although I can't cross the bridge before I get to it, at least I'm not overlooking anything major. Nevertheless I'm very grateful about this process here, because it will allow gardeners of both hemispheres to overcome the limits of the seasonal N/S shifts. These feats are now commonplace questions of the global/internet era.

Arturo

I moved my rhubarb, since it was in the middle of my lilies. The roots are quite impressive!

Today I took the bulbs out of the main bed and refreshed the soil with substrate. Last year I planted 18 bulbs in that spot. Bulbs that were there:

How many bulbs (of all sizes) have I found in this bed this year? The figure is quite impressive:
132 bulbs of L. regale
21 bulbs of L. henryi
7 bulbs of L. leucanthum (Black Dragon)
7 bulbs of tetra regale
6 bulbs of L. regale 'Album'

I think I will have to start using a herbicide for L. regale to keep his numerical condition normal. This reproduction is excessive.
Some henryi and regale bulbs were huge. This is 1st giant henryi which began to divide:

I found only one stem bulblet under the soil.
But on this one I found 18 of them:

This regale bulb was the largest and was one of the 4 bulbs I found there:

Today I restored a bed that housed hybrid lilies. Concrete slabs have been placed and everything is ready for the settlement of 10 species lily bulbs.

Looks great, Luka.

I split some clumps that needed to be divided. Crazy how many there were on some of these. All were originally 3 bulbs the few into these huge clumps. Only 6 cultivars total here.

Lucky you Dave. Yes, they definitely need dividing.