John Lykkegaard

One of the great by having a hobby is to meet other people that share it, many skilled people that have really much to teach. A few years ago I come in touch with a lily grower, John Lykkegaard. I had bought some lily seeds from http://dils.dk/ ( danish iris and lily society), their seedlist and there where something I was wondering about some of his crosses. He replied and explained what I was wondering about. In that email or the next he asked me if I would have some lily seeds from him. I was grateful and said yes. Over the next year I wrote to him several times, and he replied. In one email he told e that he could send me more seeds. When I got the seeds from him there where quite many crosses he had sent me.
The pictures below are selected seedlings in my own garden from Johns seeds.

 

The last two pictures are from a seedling where only one seedling germinated the following spring one year after sowing.

 

In 2010 my wife and I spent a week's vacation in Denmark. Since John and his family didn't lived so far away we had been invited to their home. Before dinner John showed me his garden. This where in August so there where few lilies still blooming. John dug up some bulbs that he gave to me. Last summer Lilium hansonii was blooming and this year I really hope that a golden tango that he gave me will bloom.

 

Sadly, John died last fall and his expertise will be missed by many.

 

His seeds where given to a friend of him and he shared them out to many. Some of the seeds was given to me and I'm looking foreward to see many more exiting flowers the next years.

Sowing lilies 2013, asiatics, trumpets

The first seeds I sow every year are seeds from own crosses that I'm not sure will germinate. It's a good feeling to fill the first pots, sow the seeds and write the cross on the label. And every year there are some seeds that starts to grow. This is what I started to sow this year:

* SHENANDOAH x (BLACK BEAUTY x (L. LONGIFLORUM x L. HENRYI))  3 plants so far

* SHENANDOAH x TIGER WOODS 4 seeds germinated but one died

* WHITE HENRYI x ?

* WHITE HENRYI x L. HENRYI CITRINUM 2 seedlings

* WHITE HENRYI x AWESOME

* WHITE HENRYI x (SILK ROAD x BRAVURA)

* LILUM ROSTHORNII x TRUMPETS

* LILIUM SARGENTIAE HYBRID x STARBURST SENSATION + AVOCADO : 30 so far

* LILIUM ROSTHORNII x AWESOME 4 seedlings so far

*L. ROSTHORNII-HYBRID x AWESOME +others 4 seedlings so far

When I sow lilium seeds I put all the pots I sow the seeds in in a plastic box. I keep them there till the first seedlings start to show. Then I take the pot out and place it a cool but sunny place. I have heard that Lilium rosthornii can be hard to get a good germination percentage, but I have a good percentage by placing the pot cool and sunny.

This is what I have sown so far:

L.HENRYI VAR. CITRINUM x OP 
LATVIAN PROMISE SEVERKA x (( PINK PERFECTION x WHITE HENRYI ) MEGA STAR-LA)*
LIONHEART x JUMBOTRON
HENRYI HYBRID WHITE RECURVED W/YEL.BANDS x DARK PURPLE TRUMPET
LADY ALICE x BEAUTIFUL VICTORIA*
((L.HENRYI x BRIGHT STAR) x L.HENRYI) x BEAUTIFUL VICTORIA*
BARBARA SMALL x PURPLE FLECK SEEDLING*
BARBARA SMALL x CK03-PF3*
BARBARA SMALL x BETTY STURLEY*
CK11-HT01 x CK06-HT05*
CK90-1 x BARBARA SMALL*
BETTY STURLEY x CK06-HT05*
GEORGE JACOBS OLD “BH” x CK06-HT05*
CK TALL BH SEEDLING x CK06-HT05*
CK06-HT05 x CK11-HT01*
CK06-HT05 x CK TALL BH SEEDLING*
ORANGE/MELON F2*
BH PURPLE FLECK x BARBARA SMALL*
CIGANIETE x 12 ØH 01
ILGA x 12ØH 01
 NOVICE x 12 ØH 01
( ORANGE BM 1a x ORANGE 1c TANGO) x CIGANIETE:
WHITE HENRYI x ( ALCHEMY x ORTEGA)*
WHITE HENRYI x (ICE CAVES x ORTEGA)*
NEW TANGO
TANGO AND ASIATIC MIX FROM MANY CROSSES
JOHN'S GIANT TRUMPET
Midnight X niniture pink aurelian clome X
White Henryi x (aurelian x L. rubellum)
X (freimans 4 way cross x midnight)

(Heidelberg x Caramba) x White Henryi hybrid
AWESOME x OP
LILIUM SARGENTIAE
LILIUM SULPHUREUM
WHITE HENRYI x L. SARGENTIAE-HYBRID + TIME OUT
SHENANDOAH x LANKON
SHENANDOAH x LILIUM NEPALENSE
A MIX FROM MANY TRUMPET CROSSES
SHENANDOAH x OT-R93/25, PIZZAZZ, 4n BLACK BEAUTY(?)
WHITE TRUMPET x LILIUM ROSTHORNII
TRUMPETMIX FROM RAY MACNAMARA
WHITE HENRYI x DARK, PURPLE TRUMPET

I have never sown so many lilium seeds before and hope I will find enough space for them both in the greenhouse and in the garden.

Thanks to John I recieved some seeds from Charles Kroell last year, most of them are sown this year but some of them was sown last year. I really hope that some of the will bloom this year. When I got the seeds from Charles most of the seed bags had a picture of the parents. Here are some of them:

As you can see, this is a little different trumpet lilies than most frequently are sold. This kind of trumpets are called aurelians

Sowing lilies 2013, OT and 4n trumpets

This is not the easiest lilies to germinate and the first years I grew OTs from seeds only a few seeds germinated. The first seeds I got from OTs didn't germinate at all but a lily grower told me to put the seeds in my fridge and let them stay there a while. I sow the seeds in february and the seeds germinated, after months in the fridge, in October/November. But most of them survived the winter. In 2010, late fall, I wrote a letter to Mr. Robert Griesbach asking him about how to convert lilies from diploid to tetraploid level. He wrote back to me, and together with the reply was some seed bags:

Since I had bad experience growing OT lilies from seeds I send my question to the Yahoo lily group. I got two different replies and so I did some of what I was told from both of the replies and got amazing germination. The pictures I will show are from the last two years germination of OT lilies.

About January 15. I soak the seeds in water for 2-3 days, changing water twice a day.

 

 

After 2-3 days the seeds are sown:

 

 

And covered with about 1 cm perlite. The box with the seeds are then placed in a plastic bag that are closed well and placed a cool, sunny place. The temperature should not be higher than 18 C, 64 F. Lilies germinate better when placed cool than high temperature.
Then, after 2 weeks the seeds starts to germinate:

After 2 more weeks they look like this:

 

 

The seeds continued to germinate for weeks. At the time they where ready for transplanting I'm sure that there must have been more than 50 seedlings.

Sowing lilies 2013, martagons

I started to grow some of these new varities of lily in 2012 . Since martagon's sprout hypogealy, all martagon seed was from produced by my own pollination. Since I was unsure if there would be seeds or not, I did not write any labels, so I did not know what had been pollinated for any of the crossings. "Martagon Chameleon", which produced the most seeds, were pollinated with pollen from "Lilium hansonii", "Early Bird" and perhaps also from Slate's seedling. All of the seeds were mixed in plastic bags with 50% peat and 50% perlite and grown in a slightly damp environment. Each cross was placed in a separate bag, clearly marked. After one month, this is what the seeds looked like :
 

 

The small bulbs need 2-3 months with low temperatures to germinate in the spring. When they were big enough to be put into the refrigerator they looked like this:
 

 

It's no problem to sow martagon seeds in the garden but by sowing the seeds in November like I do I'll save one year from seed until first flower. Since martagon uses between 5-7 years before it reaches 1 foot flower stems, I think it is an advantage to sow the seeds the way I do.

The purpose of this blog

A little over a year ago, John contacted me through Dave's Garden (www.dave'sgarden.com) .He wished to exchange lily seeds. After many e-mails, we knew we wanted to collaborate with each other. We began by providing large quantities of lily seeds to each other and by exchanging exciting hybrids. We began to cross interesting lily varieties. John has for years grown cut flowers and has the best location between us to plant out larger quantities of seedlings and for growing out our selections. My garden is not that big so I did not have room to plant out more than about 1,000 seedlings each year. John can plant out significantly more than that. Some of the seeds we sow comes from our own crosses done in our own greenhouses, the rest are bought or given to us. Since summers in Norway are often cool and wet, it is almost impossible to produce seed if I pollinate the lilies out in the garden. But in recent years, I have done most of the pollination in my little greenhouse with great success.
The plan with the selected seedlings is to multiply them and put them up for sale on our website. Since we have only just begun, there is still a long way to go before we can sell our own hybrids. We have been quite lucky to receive bulbs from both Anton Mego and Charles Kroell. These bulbs will be grown out to multiply them and use them for breeding purposes, but not for sale unless they give us permission. Furthermore, I have hybrids from Andris Krumins and Guntis Grants, two very talented lily breeders from Latvia whose bulbs I have imported a few years ago. They too will be used for seed production only.