Queen Kong from buggy.

Pard, I buy wholesale from Judith, but I've never seen the American series. Does Catherine have her own sales? Love that American West!

This is Queen Kong and Yellowgreen together. Here you can see that Queen Kong is a downfacing OT; something different for the garden. It can grow tall. Yellowgreen is an aurelian lily, not OT.

I'm not aware of her having her own sales. She works for the Vandersalms (sp?) and I think they are all wholesale, probably under the company name. She gave a program at one of the PNWLS meetings and showed more "American" lilies than you can shake a stick at. So many that I concluded that they have not all been introduced yet!

pard you do such a nice job with your lilies. They always look so robust in your gardens

p.s. that little yellow thing is supposed to be drooling. At first I thought he was puking (leave it to the nurse to think that, huh?)

LOL mags!

Whew! I have seven or eight more to go! This is Geisha Girl from Ramona.

Madame Butterfly from Ramona. Not to be confused with the aurelian of the same name by Mak!

And Maywood from Ramona...

Alchemy...

Miss Libby

Miss Libby inflorescence..

Last one for now, Satisfaction. Of course I have seedlings but they are one of a kind and unavailable.

I get a wholesale brochure from Van der Salm. I don't pay much attention to it, as I only do pot sales at my nursery at home, and can't handle the amount in the whole tray they sell, but I've never seen the Americana series on the brochure.

Judith told me this year that Catherine is not involved in lily sales at all. She's teaching voice lessons, I think she said, and then just caring for the girls is enough. I understand she is also quite the performer in Broadway type musicals.

I'll have to go look for the Americanan ones.

Lots of beautiful lilies to mull over. Thanks

I wouldn't mind seeing the seedlings too:) I'll probably feel bad I can't get them, but oh well. Maybe some day you will be selling some of your seedlings?

I probably spoke too soon, I don't have that many OT seedlings but lots of Asiatics and trumpets. I purchase seeds from other hybridizers to get material different from the named varieties on the market. Then when they grow up I do crosses with those. I went out and checked and found that I did plant out a few OT crosses from last year. Sooo... in a couple of years I hope to have something.

I designate this OT seedling as S-2, the "S" meaning I purchased the seed from David Sims. I have the record of what his original cross was but it is in his own shorthand. I have done a number of crosses to it, it seems reasonably fertile.

Like irises, I wouldn't sell a seedling unless it turned out very well. I dug and tossed a number of them last fall! Bud count and inflorescence are important, as well as disease resistance. It could be years before I get something I am truly happy with!

That is a beauty.

I'm seeing the American lilies at places like Brecks. is that right?

Probably... I see them in all the catalogs that get poor ratings on GWD. Brecks, Jungs etc. LOL!

So Catherine Van der Salm hybridized them, and then sold them wholesale to those places? That's odd.

And are they good lilies, I would want, and should get even if I have to buy them from those vendors? Certainly they look wonderful. And since Catherine hybridized them.........

No, Catherine married into the Van der Salm family and hybridized for that company. That is my understanding. But my guess is, and it is just a guess... since these lilies appear in the cheapo catalogues I think the wholesale growing may have been transferred back to the Dutch. In fact, I am pretty sure I bought my American West from one of those catalogs.

I can't vouch to how good they are as American West is the only "American" that I have grown. I can say it has lasted longer than some lilies in my garden and grows under adverse conditions (in the rootzone of my neighbor's Western Red Cedar).