NICE PHOTOS!
My King Kong (which someone gave back to me) is huge and blooming right now too. Although I did try to stunt it as I did not want it to be 9 feet tall here. So it is only about 6 feet.
For those that do not know, All of my lilies are lost and extinct, except for the ones my faithful customers kept alive. I lost everything and got less than nothing for my lifetime of work. Got a 5,000 bill for a worthless lawyer that help my husband screw me over and a failed divorce.
I got away with a few seeds, mostly from my breeding work with Western American hybrids and some trumpet seeds, mostly Awesome. Some of those are blooming this year, it took only 3 years in this awful place to get them to good bloom size. But the blooms here are often aborted due to lengthy and frequent heat waves. If not that then late frost. Lots of yo-yo weather in the "spring".
Most of my (FEW) beloved Orientals died last year, more are keeling over from the heat this year. I don't blame them, I cannot stand to even go outside most days here, there are maybe 2 months of scattered days out of the 12 that are tolerable. I do not know where to get my foundation stock anyway, older varieties (the tried and true) are not available anywhere. I used Rosario and Early Rose for my attempts at getting early blooming orientals, but some of the best orientals I bred where just happy accidents.
I also have some wonderful Martagons (thanks to you wonderful people!) They do well here if I can keep them from frying in the early heat attacks. This year is not as bad as last and I do have seeds on those and on the Western American hybrids. I usually do not get seed even on the easy ones like Asiatics and Trumpets due to weather. I am hoping to get seed off the Aurelians, but it looks like our yo-yo weather is over and it will be nothing but hell on earth here for the next few months. Yo-o weather is bad on plants, esp. seedling but I take any rain and nice temps I can get and revel in them!
The bulbs do great, they get huge, they don't mind growing in rocks and gravel and loss of the bloom the first year they are planted (or in the heat waves) makes them put more into growing a big bulb, not an advantage as I am now to crippled to extract those things out of the rocks and gravel, (no such thing as soil here) and no longer have all winter to do it. I do mulch, I get wood chip from the Arborists. Not so easy to find where there are NO good trees! Mostly Locust (a big NO!NO!) those things have thorns that can puncture a tractor tire!
I am using sunflowers to shade the lilies and OT hybrids to shade the Rhododendrons (an even worse folly to try to grow here).
Yes I am growing trees, but most woody plants take about 5 times longer to grow so even the fast ones are not all that fast. Also I got mostly crap when I bought trees online so I'm back to starting my own from seed-that I collect. Next year I will finally get some shade out of the Paulownias and maybe actually get to plant out my new oriental seedlings.
The OT hybrids have done the best in this hell on earth climate, and Lankon is a real trooper, full sun last year and this and it bloomed fine-blooms only last 1 day in the heat, but at least they do not turn brown until after they open! The poor thing got frostbit the first year I had it and I thought it was dead. Frostbite is BETTER than heat. It is survivable, heat is deadly and inescapable.
I think I will change my handle to I HATE SUN.
time for me to go out and see what is still alive to be watered, it has cooled off to a chilly 90F.
