Well, the big experiment on over wintering got blown. It is 17F and 3" of now. Ground is thawed okay but I just cannot force myself to go out there and try to dig the lilies up. Even just the new ones. Bah.....

I'll start by saying that the winter around Pittsburgh was not overly cold, nor a huge snowfall. I planted these in several settings around my property after having been in pots over the summer. These lilies are sprouting and growing big-time, and looking like there was additional increase over the winter. They are forefront on what is coming up, the Madonna lilies really only being ahead. Lots of vigorous growth, reminding me of grass in density of shoots. I hope the flowering is also vigorous!

I planted three bulbs last spring. Each is coming up double nose this spring. About a week after the Martagons here. It was 27' F one morning a couple days ago and no frost damage. If I get a night where it's forecast to go down into the 20's again, I'll cover all but one nose with oak leaves and monitor for damage. I'd like to know how much frost this one will withstand before damage. Zone 5B/6A here in Southeast Wisconsin.

Plants # 1 and 2


Plant#3




Three clone bulblet safety back-ups

My little experiment with frost/freeze temperature tolerance turned out pretty good. I had two nights of back to back freezing temperatures when the low was about 23.5' F or - 5.3C and about 22.5 or - 5.3'C. Not only that, but the periods below freezing were lengthy, 14 hours and 13 hours, respectively. In this experiment there were 3 double nose plants. 2 of the plants were covered with loose oak leaves for protection and left covered day and night throughout the test. 1 plant was left exposed without protection and got sunlight during the day. There was no visible frost freeze damage to the unprotected plant. The soil temperature at 4 inches was 40' F or 4.44C.

Picture 1: Exposed plant and leaf cover of the other 2 plants.


Picture 2: Close up of exposed plant.




Picture 3: All three plants after removal of leaf cover. As you can see, the exposed noses turned darker, having benefitted from more bright daylight than those light green ones under the leaf cover.




Pictures 4 and 5 and pictures 6 and 7 are recorded overnight temperatures taken from a neighbor's private weather station.

My observations/conclusion is that Fusion will nose up very early right along with or just slightly behind Martagons, and, that it will also take a deep frost/freeze without damage (similar to Martagons).

Excellent, Lorn
Just planted one of these in the kitchen garden lily trial garden today, so the info comes very timely

Very valuable preliminary data, Lorn. A well known local annual one-weekend plant sale is offering these this spring, and I might have to try one. Keep us posted, as I doubt this won't be the last heavy frost you'll get.

The weather graphs are interesting. What is causing the fluctuation in temps during daylight hours? Is it the sunshine dimming and brightening through the various density of clouds as they pass? But then, what would affect the dew point fluctuations?

Leftwood said:

The weather graphs are interesting. What is causing the fluctuation in temps during daylight hours? Is it the sunshine dimming and brightening through the various density of clouds as they pass? But then, what would affect the dew point fluctuations?

I went back and looked at the wind charts. Since the winds were light and variable both days with partly cloudy sky, the brief fluctuations in temperature can be attributed to passing clouds or the shadow of a mature con-trail, especially since there was no onshore/offshore Lake Michigan breeze component involved. The Lake Michigan onshore/offshore breeze component is usually quite dominant here and can cause temperature fluctuations as much as 10' F or more several times a day when landmass winds are from a slight westerly component to either 180 or 360 degrees. Concerning the dew point fluctuations---the dew point dropped because the temperature dropped while the amount of moisture in the air stayed the same. The per cent humidity would go up, if it could be measured for such a brief interval.

I have the exact same weather station (that I got for Christmas) but I'm waiting for some time and a nice day to set it up. When that happens, you'll be able to go on line and see all my weather conditions.

During the night of April 8th and 9th, the temperature was below freezing for 19 hours with a low of 20.5' F or - 6.4' C. This time only one stem of a double nose was left unprotected because the other nose has many little offsets emerging which I didn't want to risk. A small household paint pail was used as cover for the protected nose and offsets. About an inch of snow fell overnight. There was no apparent or visible damage at this point of growth.

Unprotected nose and grey paint pail over adjacent nose.




Removing the pail about noontime. The snow has melted.






Finally, both protected and exposed. Exposed on the right.




Chart for morning of April 9th.

My stand of Fusion! Last year I had two bulbs. One bulb was a double nose and the other was a triple nose. This year I see nine stems coming up with 3 big boys. Only one stem bloomed a single bloom last year. This year should be a show. They seem to be doing well even with temp dropping under freezing a few times this spring already.

Good Gosh, Joe---Yours are growing 'like weeds'.

Hi all,

Does anyone know if "Fusion" has made it to Australia yet?

Thanks.

I haven't seen it yet. Didn't take Lankon and Kushi Maya long to get here, so I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen Fusion yet.

Thanks Della. Hopefully it'll appear soon, as I'd like to get one.

Three little safety back up clones really like it here.

They sure do, Lorn.

I looked online and couldn't find a source for Fusion. At least over here. Do you have to order it in seeds form? Do you think it would benefit some lilies like the orienpets to cover them with a pot or something over winter. Mine tend to rot if the snow cover isn't adequate or we have that freeze thaw thing going on in spring. I only had them one or two years then they disappeared. Gorgeous 9" blooms with lovely fragrance. I figured it was the frozen ground around them that rotted them.

Roosterlorn said:New introduction by H.W.Hyde & Son, 2015. When I went to scale the bulb for safety back-up, I found two bulblets the size of a green pea behind a couple outer scales. A third even smaller bulblet about the size of a BB pellet fell out from somewhere; so small I wasn't even going to plant it--but here it is---growing. Easiest 'back-up' job I ever did.

• Lily (Lilium 'Fusion')
• Uploaded by Roosterlorn

• Lily (Lilium 'Fusion')
• Uploaded by Roosterlorn

UPDATE, October 23rd, 2016. Bulblets were pulled today for transplanting. Originally planted on April 19th, 2015, two were slightly smaller than a frozen green pea and a third was BB size or about the size of a grain of rice. Here they are today. Planted in unsterilized garden soil and a light dust of Captan in a 1 gallon trade pot. The bulbs of this hybrid are quite small by nature.

Fusion planted this spring for me did not send up a stalk this year. Digging around yesterday where the marker was and there was Fusion, 2 of them now. We'll see what it does next year.

I planted fusion this fall. Now we wait