For the people that have multiple varities of lilies, do you separate by type? As in asiatics grouped together with just asiatics, trumpets with trumpets and so forth. Or do you mix them up but arrange by height or colors. And if I may ask, whichever way you do it, why?

My gardens are a hodge podge and news ones get shoved in wherever I find room.

There is an advantage to intermingling the divisions if you are interested in hybridizing seeing as neighboring lilies likely won't be compatible. Of course, this does not take the place of careful protection of pollen and stigma to ensure known parentage.

I do try to plant short ones in front but that is about it for planning.

Now if you are more into enjoyable landscaping that looks great and is color coordinated and all, that's great! But if I have a pink lily end up next to an orange one, well, c'est la vie!

That's about how my gardens are. I do put short ones in front, middle height, then tallest in back. My thinking if you did the seperate plantings is that you would have some beds done blooming with no color, while the next bed is starting. I don't like that idea for some reason

You are right about that, Dave. By intermingling the divisions one can get all season color is a garden area. One drawback could be with climate. For example, someone in a real hot summer area may want to congregate Oriental lilies together in a part shade area. Or martagons in a shady area.

I think this will be no surprise....
for me, it's all about the plant: what it wants and where I have room. Tall, short, front, back, orange, red, etc. --> unimportant (most of the time). But I am still a bachelor, and there's no one to please but myself.

Hey, we can toggle the pictures back and forth now

My lily gardens resemble a vegetable garden set out in rows 30 inches wide where the primary objective is to hybridize and grow seed. Appearance for beauty has no value here and weeds are not a concern by reasonable control with mulch.

We do have a peanut shaped mixed lily garden by the north driveway entrance about 40 X 15 feet packed full of commercials just for show. A few each of many cultivars in there for a summer long display. Average residency is 3 years and out with very few high seniority lilies in there. A crowded mass planting that's hard to keep clean and a recipe for disaster as far as disease goes. But everybody loves it, so we try to keep it going.

Since I am planting out a new bed (joined two beds, one kidney and one arc three fee away) to make a larger kidney shape about 30' on the upper arc and 18' wide, what to put where has been driving me nuts. I am plagued by weeds, esp chickweed, so determined that first I would allow a little more room between things like dahlias and lilies so I can use my weed shuffler to get to the weeds early. I decided to put iris in the back as it blooms early, then lilies in the next arc forward which will bloom at all diff times. I put in a few bushes at each end and a small squat spruce at the apex in the back. I dug up ferns, columbine, astilbe to sort of plump out that section so it isn't totally regimented. And they should provide lots of color and different texture. I have two peonies there, Lemon Chiffon and Border Charm in front. All other peonies are in another bed. Final step is to put in edging (sedum and ajuga) in front and part way around sides. Oh, yes ajuga between the hydrangea and two nine bark. That leaves the middle open for my dahlias and poppies next spring. Again spaced so I can get in there to weed.

Part of the rationale for planting the lilies in one long arc was that when I dug them all up from all over the yards I lost track of who was who. I know that the yellow ones are one kind, the pinkish another, then the plain white. I only planted the larger bulbs in this bed, but will be taking the ones down to 3/4" in diameter and planting them in a spot elsewhere just to identify them to assure I don't throw out something I want to keep.

Finally spray with Planskyyd to repel moose and erect moose fence. Then it is time for hot chocolate and tylenol. Rototilled 3.5yrds of dirt, then mulch then raked before even starting the planting. Not to mention hauling large brick. Yup. The occasional glass of wine might even sneak in there. Hope it looks good next year or I am paving it over.

I tend to mix my lilies throughout the gardens, primarily concerned with what the lilies need to thrive. I can't really claim that it is planned that way...where ever they (or other plants) can be squeezed in even temporarily works for me. Right now I have numerous pots of lilies that I have to somehow protect through the winter with no gardens ready for them yet. I also just received my martagon order today from Ramona. I am trying to decide if I should pot them up also then dig the pots into the old vegetable garden for the winter with lots of extra soil and mulch up around them. We have been having non stop major issues with this eighty five year old farmhouse (even beyond what we anticipated) so I am way behind in what I need to get done before it gets to cold. This yard is beautifully sloping land which will work well for future lily beds but right now I can't use a lot of it because of future construction projects. I managed to ignore that I am getting older and can't work as efficiently as I once did but now that winter is fast approaching it is getting harder to ignore.

Oberon46 said:Since I am planting out a new bed (joined two beds, one kidney and one arc three fee away) to make a larger kidney shape about 30' on the upper arc and 18' wide, what to put where has been driving me nuts. I am plagued by weeds, esp chickweed, so determined that first I would allow a little more room between things like dahlias and lilies so I can use my weed shuffler to get to the weeds early. I decided to put iris in the back as it blooms early, then lilies in the next arc forward which will bloom at all diff times. I put in a few bushes at each end and a small squat spruce at the apex in the back. I dug up ferns, columbine, astilbe to sort of plump out that section so it isn't totally regimented. And they should provide lots of color and different texture. I have two peonies there, Lemon Chiffon and Border Charm in front. All other peonies are in another bed. Final step is to put in edging (sedum and ajuga) in front and part way around sides. Oh, yes ajuga between the hydrangea and two nine bark. That leaves the middle open for my dahlias and poppies next spring. Again spaced so I can get in there to weed.

Part of the rationale for planting the lilies in one long arc was that when I dug them all up from all over the yards I lost track of who was who. I know that the yellow ones are one kind, the pinkish another, then the plain white. I only planted the larger bulbs in this bed, but will be taking the ones down to 3/4" in diameter and planting them in a spot elsewhere just to identify them to assure I don't throw out something I want to keep.

Finally spray with Planskyyd to repel moose and erect moose fence. Then it is time for hot chocolate and tylenol. Rototilled 3.5yrds of dirt, then mulch then raked before even starting the planting. Not to mention hauling large brick. Yup. The occasional glass of wine might even sneak in there. Hope it looks good next year or I am paving it over.

Ha! You are so not paving it over because you aren't going to let the moose win. You are an Alaskan and that loosing to the moose is not in your mindset. My husband was at our place outside Homer a couple of weeks ago. He said it looked just like when we first bought it-Pushki taking over everything. He said he could barely see where the gardens were.

Thank you for everyone's input. I was just interested to see what people did. Me personally, I like when they lilies are mixed. Just my own opinion and preference, but i think that mixing them by types and colors makes each one stand out individually. Of course I put shorter ones to the front along with upfacing ones. I'm sure for comparison reasons, for instance, yellows next to yellows, is nice, but I think it drowns out the characteristics of them. But if it were up to my other half, every one would be pink and that's it.

Dave, I think most colors blend in naturally in a mixed garden but generally shorter ones in front regardless of type, then taller, bold ones as focal points toward center or rear. We should always try to coordinate with blooming times as a first consideration and then color coordination second. Next year start recording blooming times of lilies and companion plants in your area. With just a little bit of data and a little imagination you can have a pretty well thought out mixed garden with some lilies in bloom all summer.

Back in DG (Davesgarden.com) times, there was a member that devised an excel book to track bloom times and display them graphically. She passed it out to anyone who wanted it. It still works fine, although updating the 2006 version to a 2016 version would require quite a bit of excel programing know how. If anyone would like a copy, tree mail me with your email address and I can send it to you.

Lorn, I have been thinking about getting a decent laptop computer and make a file on there to track my lilies with.blooming times, start and finish, height, ploidy if known, etcetera. Including pictures, my hybridizing efforts, so on. I'm sure you have a similar way of doing things. My wife is a whiz with a spreadsheet and computer. The house computer is taken over by my kids, so most of my technology use is on my phone or tablet. Both of which are limited with what they can do.

One quick question. When a bulb is planted, even if it's from North America (grown) is there still a cycle reset for the bulb? And how long? I know yearly weather affects the bulb cycle, but how long does it take for the bulb to be on the normal, accurate, cycle?

In my opinion, there are lots of ways to achieve the data collecting and archiving. But what is crucial is that the information will be accessible into the future. There are plenty of handy dandy programs that are tailored to, or can easily be adapted for, nifty looking storage of data and photos, but the program itself will eventually become obsolete in that it will not be compatible with newer technologies to come. This is why I never use the fancy organizing programs that often come with a new camera, for instance. They are very convenient, useful and (often) efficient, but will they still be usable 20 years from now? All of my stuff is organized in file folders, Word, Excel and pdf.


edited to remove double negative

Good point Rick. I could always print up a copy of everything, then file it into a folder in the filing cabinet so that I have an actual "hard" copy. Then at least I could always refer to them if I needed. While technology is nice and convenient, these days it is obsolete once you unpack it seems like.

Just got a new HDTV,oh look now there is a new 4k HDTV. just using that as a reference

Dave, follow Rick's lead on this for records. As far as your question about how long it takes a bulb to acclimate--generally one year for freshly dug bulbs grown and purchased in your own hemisphere is sufficient to set their bio clock to your locality. Bulbs purchased from another hemisphere ( in your case, down under, southern) can require two to three seasons to fully acclimate. This would apply to scales as well. More later.

Rick, I would love the spreadsheet. I have an access database and get good reports but I like the graphics you showed from Excel. I am pretty decent with Excel, including formulae. Not so great with graphics but would love to give it a try. Ohhhhhh. A new toy.

Lorn, we love it when you say now to come. It means you either have a revelation or lily history, or you did an experiment. Well usually anyways.

I agree with Mary, I would be interested in the spreadsheet as well. But I do have a notebook to log info in as well as a back up on a hard drive!

Oh I still print hard copies and file them away once or twice a year, no matter what. And unfortunately, what I say about programs that become obsolete would also include this site. It might be advantageous for you to keep a list, a blog, garden calendar, etc. here, but don't expect it to be permanent.

Regarding the nifty Excel graphics, the forums here and tree mail don't allow Excel files so you all will need to send me a tree mail with your personal email address, so I can send you it there.

Tree mail sent Rick. Thank you.