So, when you're shopping for lily bulbs, how do know which are Dutch hybrids?

You can look up the lily's name in the Lily Register (link at top of lily forum). Use your pdf search function; you will have to search each pdf until you find it. You might try the gerrydanen link first for older lilies (up to around 2005 or so). It is quicker, just click on Search and type the name into the box that comes up. Dutch bred lilies are from Dutch companies that have dutch sounding names for the most part. World Breeding company is one exception that comes to mind.

Play around with it and see how it works for you. If you don't find the entry for the lily you are looking for it could be that it is not registered or it is too new to show up in the register.

I am new to ATP but do have a love for lilies.I have learned so much from this and other threads on the lily forum. I often stopped by before becoming a member. I have read every posting beginning to end on this forum (at least those on the first page).So much info!
Gary

Welcome! You have come to the right place to share your love of lilies😊

Welcome to ATP, Gary!

This is the forum where we talk about our addictions

Hi Gary: Glad to hear you like lilies. 'Together, we all learn from each other'.

I do not have much luck with orientals as far as long term. Love the flowers, but they usually only last a season or two. An exception has been Rio Negro. IIt actually multiplies and flourishes for me.OT's do well but straight trumpets are iffy. I try almost any lily that appeals to me. Asiatics are of course very dependable here.

I purchased a mixed bag of 12 Orientals at Lowes about 5 years ago now. They have done very well for me so far. I have only lost one of those.They are unnamed but most are white or white with patterns. The flowers are huge and are on stems about 40 inches tall. Not named but they are beautiful to me!

Kushi Maya was a disappointment it's first year. It had rather small flowers and just looked a bit tired. I had it in a pot and overwintered it in a cold basement area. It started to grow way too early for me to place outside. It was very anemic looking when I was finally able to place it outside, It greened up nicely and produced very large flowers. They were gorgeous.We shall have to see what it does this season.

A favorite is Gerrit or Garret? That was my dad's name. It has very strong,thick stems and a large number of green/white flowers. It is about 48 in. tall.

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Hi Gary!

Yelloween!!!!! Oh how I hate that one with a purple, writhing passion! I was talked into buying it at a lily show, took it home and planted it and thus the saga of horror after horror began. First of all the flower was the ugliest shade of yellow possible. I thought it was going to be that nice bright yellow like the Yellow Wopper. Oh no... it was this nasty almost mustardy, orange yellow. Turned out to be up facing and I can't stand upfacing lilies. To add insult to insult it either came infected with bothrytis or was massively suceptable because it was covered. I tried every remedy and nothing worked and worse than that it spread to everything else planted near it. Long and short that's one I'll never have again

Yehudith

Upward facing blooms on tall OT lilies such as Yelloween seems to be an especially unfortunate mix in the garden, regardless if one likes the color or not. One would need a Iadder to view a mature stem properly! I moved some bulbs of 'Flavia' to the cutting garden for this exact reason.

My yelloween and my old yelloween (from my extinct farm) were both bright yellow. It never got tall enough to not see it so I wonder if you have the right thing........Were I had my nursery the tall ones could get so tall I had to use a ladder to photograph some of them, that never happened with yelloween.

That could be a good observation regarding the color of 'Yelloween'

However the only one referencing its height was me and I actually never tried 'Yelloween'. I was just using what I thought I knew about its ultimate height, to connect with what I experience as a problem with up facing, very tall lilies, regardless of the cultivar. However I'm really glad you never needed a ladder to view yours!!!

That said I have seen 'Yelloween' referenced as tall in many places, among these BD lilies: "'Yelloween' has reached a whopping 7 and 8 feet during cold and rainy springs in our garden." http://www.bdlilies.com/l9222.... . I don't know how accurate they are in their descriptions, especially as height is often used as a sales argument for OT-lilies, but perhaps any height differences is more a question about different growing conditions than anything else?

'Yelloween' a whoppin' 4 feet here. Certainly no 'Silk Road'.

Interesting, it does look like 'Yelloween' is somewhat variable in height. This lady here grows 'Yelloween' quite tall: http://karenrexrode.typepad.co...

Sometimes one does wonder why a lily grows the way it does. After three years I finally gave up on the OT 'Lavon' after getting it to grow to the not so impressive height of 1,5 feet . OK so the bulbs I got was absolutely rubbish, extremely dry with huge sprouts, but still they should have been able to grow taller from scales faster than that

I think climate has a lot to do with it, I had a very good climate where I used to produce lilies, but Yelloween never got as tall as some, maybe it never got as big of a bulb as some. Here in hell on earth (or hell frozen over) they tend to be shorter which is good since there is usually no breeze at all so if it should happen to rain, or if there is a rare bit of wind everything falls over due to the weak stems plants have here since there is no breeze and no rain to strengthen them as they develop.
But when I was producing them I did have to pay attention to how high the lilies got since some people didn't want their windows blocked by 7-10 foot lilies! And they were and are in full sun, that has a difference on height.

I agree with you, Lisa. Though I would love a 7-10 foot lily that could hold itself up blossoming!

I'm truly shocked, only barbarians would complain about having their view "blocked" by gorgeous 7-10 foot lilies. They should be thankful instead!!!

Sorry about the difficult temperatures you are experiencing, Lisa. While I have nothing against cold (if there is snow to protect the plants!) I really dislike hot summer temperatures and I'm very thankful that the summers here often are rather cold.

Yes, I think you are both correct about climate making a huge difference. Soil would be a factor as well and so could pathogens and so on. Just hard to nail it down to a specific factor.

Tracey, isn't stem strength a wonderful thing? I find it absolutely fascinating(and in truth more than a bit annoying) when lilies that are described in some catalogs as having extremely strong stems, never needing support... collapses in the slightest breeze. At the same time lilies described as needing some support grows 100% upright and sturdy even though they receive less sun

William, you really are never too sure about catalog descriptions. I have much better luck when gardeners here report the strength or lack of strength of any given lily stem. Silk Road seems to be one of the best to have height and stem strength to support the often loaded with blossoms stem. A big storm with wind can take anything down here, it seems.

With weather, you get what you get. Here Summer's can vary a bit from dreadfully hot and humid to not so bad. Honestly I am grateful to see bloom season no matter what it brings, so long as it is full of my favorite plants and their blossoms. It's always nice when you get just enough rain... But not too much.. Just enough sun but not scorching... I like balance in it all, but I don't always get it.. So then it's back to being happy about the blossoms and some of them seedlings for the first time!

You are so right, Tracey and I suspect some of these descriptions about stem strength really originates from greenhouse grown lilies. I do confess to having both a sandy soil as well as living in the forest, so I may in fact have quite unreasonable demands regarding stem strength!

Silk Road , such a strong grower and in addition last season with our unusually cold spring I enjoyed it's lovely reddish spring foliage color for a long, long time. I didn't know it could keep that color for so long, but it was a really nice surprise. Can't wait to see at what height it tops out here.

I have to tell a little joke of sorts. My dad would use elastic banding--the kind at JoAnn Fabrics, etc. and make a fairly large loop, then staple the ends. It really worked great for a full head of flowers in a windstorm. But here's the punch, being frugal as he was, he would cut the elastic out of old underwear and claimed that was the best that one could use. Maybe it was.

I learned never to tie a lily up at the base of a flower head from him.