I have them in our closet. On a shelf under my clothes. Figured the towel will keep it dark in there plus a little weight on them

I checked all the bags and salvaged what I could. Only one bag had any bulbets started, a free NOID from my order. I have kept the bags in a cardboard box to keep them in the dark. I did have the box set on the concrete floor in my house (but I did have radiant heat still going much of the time), perhaps it was to warm or I had to much sand in my mix. I followed Lorn's advice and repotted them in bags of milled peat moss. Oddly enough I couldn't find a single asiatic scales left in any of the bags-just gone.

Roosterlorn said:A 'no-show' that I dug to investigate this morning. I saw nothing wrong with this bulb last fall at planting time. Hopefully some scales are large enough to grow some good size clone bulblets.

UPDATE 9/21/15. After a long 4 months of incubation, I finally have bulblets. Bulblets were the potted and grown until Jan. 8th, 2016, then entered into a forced chill cycle until April 14th, 2016. Finally, after almost exactly a year later I have 9 little ones up on May 23rd, 2016. Descant is a hybrid from Ariadne, both of which are known to be slow, slow, slow with bulblet development.

9/21/15 photos







5/23/16 photo

Those look good, Lorn. 'Descant' is one I have tried a few times I either get a no show or a vanishing act. So pretty, but doesn't grow well for me.

Nice work, Lorn. I look forward to seeing how they go. When do you expect they will bloom?

I also just looked up 'Descant' and the photo on the Lily Garden website is lovely. Pity I can't get it here!

Loved this forum and I just read it from beginning to end...

Wonderful information and I wish I would have read it before last fall. I'll explain in the rest of this post.

During a move to a new home, I had dug up a few lily bulbs that I had received as gifts from a daylily grower. One of the bulbs had lots of other bulbs growing from the parent. I had never seen this before. and to be honest, I am not too familiar with growing lilies. So, I separated as many of the baby bulbs as I could and some of them fell apart. Again, with little knowledge of scaling and cloning lilies, I took the scales and placed them in a pot of garden soil. Curiously, I watched this pot all winter and into the spring. Sure enough, after temps really began to warm here, lilies sprouted and are growing in the pot. I will have to get a photo when I can remember and come back to share...

Edited to add photos,

Hi Stan: And welcome to the (real) lily forum. I think what you have is probably more of what we call stem bulblets than actual scales--or possibly both. Anyway, that's kind of immaterial right now. The important thing is you've got some little ones started. As the season progresses and these grow more to maturity, don't be surprised if they start to turn yellow and go near dormant at some point. That's natural so don't over water or fertilize when they do that. The bulbs will always be there, safe and sound, even though it looks like nothings going on. Come late November, early December, these will be ready to transplant in your garden. In the meantime, I see you could add a little more soil or compost to your pots and maybe fertilize a little ever so lightly. Keep your pots out of the hot, direct sun. Don't forget to post pictures and ask questions when you can. Again,

First attempt at scaling was not successful. I had some bulbs that dropped a couple scales during shipping do i tried to get them to give me a couple bulblets. They were incubated for over a month. I decided to check on them today and they all turned to mush

Probably too wet medium. Practically dry with a little moisture added works best.

I just checked my scales again. Nothing happening after 2.5 months and 3 months for another batch. Most of them are OT scales. I rebagged them in only milled peat moss on May 21st. Kept in a cardboard box on cool cement floor. Thought maybe too dry? I took a 2 oz spray bottle and squirted in 5 short squirts in each one (guessing maybe 1/8 tsp. at most) in each gallon bag. Do all OT scales take longer to set bulbets? Or is this likely a lost cause already? Maybe time of year is the issue? Any thoughts? I have never had trouble before even when I had no idea what I was doing. However this is the first time for this type of lily. Any thoughts on this?

Everything else is doing terrific, transplants, newly planted and from seed lilies.

Some bulbs that are held in identical conditions have a hard time than others. I had an OT that refused and I've had a trumpet only do it very slowly.

May be too cool, freezengirl. Best at 65-70°F.
http://garden.org/thread/view_...

My second attempt is successful do far. Been a couple weeks incubating.

Looks good, Dave. What are you using for your medium?

I am also having my first attempt at scaling (took a few scales off some of my recent acquisitions) and am using unmilled sphagnum moss.

I used the same thing you did. Used gallon size freezer bags. Put sphagnum moss into a bowl. Added just a tiny bit of water. And mixed it up. Made sur as i put it in the bag, i wrung out any extra bit of water. Leafed bag with half the moss. Then put in the scales. Then add second layer of moss. Close the back and put it on top of kitchen cabinet covered by a towel. Checked next day. If bag had moisture in it. I opened the bag for a day to let the moisture escape.

Thought I'd post a few pictures for comparison. With some of the bulbs I recently obtained, I took one or two scales if I thought the bulb was sufficiently large enough (i.e. out of 3 'Pearl Jennifer' bulbs I took 5 scales). Half the idea was to get some practice/experience with scaling rather than clone any specific cultivar.

I soaked the scales in a dilute bleach solution for anywhere from 10-30 minutes (depending on whether I forgot them or not), allowed them to air dry for an hour or two, then placed into a ziplock bag with some sphagnum moss. The bags were then wrapped in a spare towel and stored in the wardrobe. I don't think this was a good spot for them initially, since nothing happened for weeks and so on the 7th of July (19 days ago) I moved them into the hall cupboard (at the time, no bulblets were visible). I was rather excited to find the first few last weekend and surprised at how quickly they've grown since then.

"Pearl Jennifer"
5 scales (started incubation on 11th June / 41 days ago)
3 scales have produced 4 bulblets so far (leftmost has a really tiny one that doesn't show up in the photo)




"Tiger Babies"
3+ scales (not sure; didn't record how many; started incubation on 26th June / 26 days ago)
2 scales have produced 4 bulblets so far; interestingly, these also have a lot of roots



The others I have incubating haven't got any bulblets yet. I've only had two scales go mouldy (Mapira) and realised that the issue was that the scales were pressed up against the side of the bag and the edge was collecting too much moisture.

My plan is to let these particular two sets of bulblets grow a bit more and then put them into the fridge for 8 weeks in early August (probably in about a fortnight's time). That means they should be ready to pot up in early/mid-October, so hopefully they won't be much out-of-sync with the season. The others, should they produce any bulblets, will probably just be a month behind.

Joshua, it's always best grow the clone bulblets as large as possible before the long chill cycle. As long as the mother scale is solid, that means there's still plenty of nourishment that can be used by the bulblet. You will run a little later start with the chill, but that's ok because starting them a little later in the spring makes very little difference, and, it's well worth it because the larger bulblets both grow and develop faster. Keeping them on your seasonal time clock is secondary right now. Their real important time clock setting will occur the first winter outside.

Thanks for the advice, Lorn. What should I use as an indicator that they're ready to go in the fridge, then? Is there a particular size you try to grow them to, or do you look for signs that the mother scale is depleted (and what does that look like)?

Ideally, you want the mother scale to look like a decomposed leaf. But most times you end up compromising here and there. An abundance of tiny white hair like roots visible in the bag is a good indicator things are getting close. If you see a smooth larger diameter white or slightly green root that stands out from all the rest, it's actually not a root, it's a stem. That's when you have to pull it from incubation, regardless if the mother scale is decomposed or not. Try to catch it just before it gets a stem.

What has a tendency to happen if the scaled clones are pulled to soon is that later on when both mother scale with bulblets attached are planted in media, the mother scale will live on as a parasite to the bulblet, remaining alive for as much as a year or two. This handicaps growth of the bulblet. When faced with this situation, it's wise to cut the old scale free a short distance from where they are attached. Some people even put these scales back in the same incubation bags to make more bulblets along the new cut line.

Ask any questions you may have as you proceed.

I'll be asking too Lorn. Thanks for the tips