Back in March 2010 some of you were discussing Sims seeds and why he was not selling at the present. I e-mailed his wife (She is Secretary of NALS I think) and asked her if she knew Sims. She replied that it was her husband and right now he did not have the time for hybridizing because he had a young family. Hopefully he would get back to crossing lilies.

I had heard from a mutual friend, that he was busy with kids and quit for a while. But I bet, he will return as so many who have a true love of lilies do.

Hello I am a lily addict, even the ravages of TBV couldn't take me out, yet ;*)
Some of my babies. The big pot will have blooms this year, yeah!
I have one test tube bulb growing in the middle. All that work for one stink-en bulb?! It was the journey not just the destination...

Andy

What is the important work that little angel is doing?

We call the grow room the "Lab". She likes to go in there while I'm watering etc. She was planting Lupine seeds with the tweezers. I gave her some Lupine and pepper seeds to plant so she can go in there and watch her work grow.

That is so cute

So cute!

Can you tell us a little more about what you did for the test tube lily?

A future horticulturist. That's what I say. I wish I had someone to "mentor" around here. The little neighbor kids used to come over and we'd eat snap peas, radishes and such, but they all moved away.

I sure understand that, Rick. If I can drag a kid to the garden, all the better. We don't have any neighbors close, so that's out. But visitors get dragged. My granddaughter of course, when she's here. My inspector lives almost 100 miles away, and doesn't have other places to visit close by, so the last time he came out he brought his little son, about 6 years old. What fun we had. Nothing better than being in the garden with kids.

Polly the test tube stuff is kind of a long story. The short answer: pollinate a lily that naturally won't produce seed with it's mate, wait 50-60 days. During that 50-60 days make test tubes with nutrient gel and prepare a clean room or area. After 50-60 days cut open seed pod and try to find any embryos that can be put in test tubes. Wait and see if mold grows, or embryo grows into a lily bulb.

And you got a bulb from it. How wonderful! I know of course, lots of things are propagated in test tubes, but I never really thought of the procedure. Thanks.

Andy, Judith has told me for years how much easier test tubes are than growing from seed. It just doesn't seem like it to me. The whole test tube thing reminds me of chemistry class (which I hated) and I haven't ventured over that way....at least not yet.

Your daughter sure has grown up a lot. It's amazing how fast they grow, just like little seedlings

Yes they grow far too fast. I didn't have much luck with my test tubes. Lots and lots of work with 1 success. I even had a pamphlet from Judith! Owell.

I worked in a tissue culture lab my first year of college, isolating Ginseng embryos in test tubes. Even with a hood and a sterile workspace, fungal contamination was often a problem. I just can't imagine how to set up a good lab environment at home to do that kind of work.

Neal surprisingly I had very little contamination. My embryos, even from viable seed, didn't grow very good. I followed directions and read what other people were doing, but...

That's great that you had so little contamination! I wonder if those that didn't grow well were just genetically weak?

I did use copious amounts of rubbing alcohol. I always wondered if the gel absorbed the evaporated alcohol, because they were in sealed plastic bags. I tried normal seed embryos and even those didn't work so great. I was very detailed and tenacious when trying to get things to work right, despite many failures. Never figured out the problem though.

Hmmm...that has me wondering if there was a problem with the agar, maybe the growth hormone concentrations were off?

As we are all aware that Tiger Lilies produces small bulbil on their stems. I collect a few back on 10-1-09 and planted them in a basket. Normal garden soil (nothing special) and today 2-27-11 I took these photos. One of them has more leaves than the second basket. Orange Tiger

I am having really slow/bad germination this year. I even soaked the seeds for 1 to 2 weeks. Plus my lilies look ill. Light colored leaves,dark edges etc. I have never been able to get a hold of testing soil ph.