Too little space

I'm really short of space and I dream of a bigger house and a larger garden. This year I knew that I would saw more seeds than before and space was the big challenge. My hope was to grow 1000 seedlings this year. I had to put up a new shelf to be able to give all my seedlings sunshine. I don't give extra light since the temperature becomes too high for my OTs and 4n trumpets. Not all the crosses have germinated yet. But at the same time the daylilyseedlings have just begun to germinate. This how my growing room looks like now:

 

My greenhouse are not too big either. The picture are from last year:

 

 

  

Last year I manage to have a rather large number of plants in it. I think this was May last year:

 

And this is the greenhouse in June/July:

This year I know the greenhouse will contain the same number of plants or more. But all the lily seedlings will be growing at the tables and save allot of space to the lilies that I'm going to pollinate.

 

This is the size of the new boxes I am going to grow the seedlings in. The few seedlings I grew in these boxes last year on the tables was large. This winter I have got 20 of them. It is possible to grow 50 seedlings in each box and maybe 12 boxes on each table.

Lilium Rosthornii

 

 

A few years ago I heard about this new lily, a close relative to L. henryi but blooming a few weeks later and with a little different seed pod. My experience growing it from seeds, and hybrids from it, is that they have poor germination percentage. John Lykkegaard told me that the seeds germinate better if the pot are placed cool for a few months after sowing.

This year I placed the pots in the windowsill in the room where I sow my lilies, with the window just open. I guess the temperature might be as low as 10 C / 50 F. After 3-4 weeks the first seedling germinated, and now one and a half months after sowing ( sown 1. January) they look like this:

In the blue pot there's a lot of seeds from a hybrid of rosthornii pollinated with pollen from Awesome and other trumpets. Every day new seedlings appear. The other are maybe from rosthornii or the hybrid.

Pollen

Today I got pollen from a friend of mine in Tasmania, Australia. This is not the first time he sends me pollen. I really appreciate that he do this since this gives me the possibility to do crosses with lilies I actually don't grow. In 2011 he send me pollen from : Lowana (asiatic) Dark purple OT? Black Back ,Brown pendant OT Dark Black ( both are Ryirube a cross between Lilium henryi and Lilium rubellum) and Robina (OT). Fall last year seedlings from :

Shenandoah x Dark pendant OT Dark Black where planted out in the garden. Looking foreward to see the flowers.

In 2012 he sent me: 2n Black Beauty (OT), Tiger Woods and Crimson Glory ( both orientals),           a yellow Ryirube seedling. In the fall seeds where harvested from :

LILIUM SARGENTIAE HYBRID x RYIRUBE SEEDLING : plenty of seeds
LILIUM SARGENTIAE HYBRID x DARK PURPLE RYIRUBE : plenty of seeds
LILIUM SARGENTIAE HYBRID x BROWN PENDANT RYIRUBE : plenty of seeds
LILIUM SARGENTIAE HYBRID x ROBINA: plenty of seeds
SHENANDOAH x DARK PURPLE OT/RYIRUBE BLACK BACK : plenty of seeds
SHENANDOAH x TIGER WOODS few seedlings
WHITE HENRYI x DARK PURPLE RYIRUBE: many seeds
They are all crosses done with pollen from plants that I have never had in my garden.

A nice lady sent me pollen from Awesome last summer. The pollen gave me seeds from these crosses:

WHITE HENRYI x AWESOME: many seeds
LILIUM ROSTHORNII x AWESOME: few numbers of seeds
L. ROSTHORNII-HYBRID x AWESOME +ANDRE many good seeds.
The L. rosthornii-hybrid are from the cross L. rosthornii x various trumpets. Seeds from John Lykkegaard. I'm not sure if it's a hybrid or L. rosthornii. The flowers looks like L. rosthornii.

The pollen he sent me this time where:

Aurelian:
Louise
Anton Mego hybrid x Black Heart White
Lilium henryi var. citrinum hybrid
Heart Throb
Butterscotch - not asiatic as I have written on the bag.

Asiatic:
Pink Pioneer x Perfect Pink.

Orientals:
Wildfire

OT:
Regal Star

+ a Ryirude I'm not sure I have seen picture of.

John have sent me bulbs he have got from Charles Kroell. I find the aurelians most interesting and they will be planted in my greenhouse. They are:

Betty Sturley
Aurelian seedling (dark nectaries)
Aurelian seedling

Last fall Anton Mego sent me some bulbs from his hybrids, they where:

BEAUTIFUL VICTORIA (Aurelian)
TROPICAL GARDEN (Aurelian)
AM-04/2041-4 (Aurelian)? I asked Anton for pictures and he sent me pictures of all exept one. It'll be a surprise how this one looks like.
GERLACH (Aurelian)
MAGIC LAMP (Aurelian)
MY LITTLE BABY (small bulbs, will not bloom before next year) (Aurelian)
SLOVAK SAPPHIRE (OT)
My plan for this year is to use pollen from Tasmania to pollinate these lilies.
 

Lilium Shenandoah

In 1995 there where introduced some new trumpets for sale. They where strains and had names after American national parks. I only grow one of them, Shenandoah. This is how it's looks like:

When I bought the seeds from DILS I didn't knew anything about it and I had never heard anything about it before. I have only one plant that have produced bulblets, I'm not able to produce seeds by pollinate 2 plants and grow Shenandoah from seeds.

The flowers are surprisingly small, not what I thought a 4n trumpet would look like. But I have done some crosses with it and it doesn't produce seeds when pollinated with White Henryi. But when pollinated with pollen from OTs and Ryirube the pods have been full of excellent seeds. In 2011 I pollinated Shenandoah with pollen from these lilies:

Mixed pollen from: 4n Black Beauty(?) - Pizzazz - OT R93/25, Mixed pollen from Miss Libby, Conca D'or and Alexandra, pollen from Starburst Sensation and A brown pendant Ryirube.

Every year I grow seedlings from Shenandoah the seeds germinate well and grow fast. This is a box with seedlings from last year:

 

Last year the bulb had split and had 2 stems. It was pollinated with :
Miss Libby, OT pollen mix, dark purple ryirube, the new lily Lankon, Black Beauty x ( L. longiflorum x L. henryi) , Tiger Woods ( oriental) and L. nepalense.
Some of these crosses have been sown and both crosses with Lankon and L. nepalense are germinating well. The cross with Tiger Woods have 5 seedlings but there where few seeds in the pod.

I have learned that 4n trumpets germinate well when treated like OT seeds, earlier post. But seeds from Shenandoah germinate well without any extra care. 

7 different L. sargentiae crosses x op

A few years ago I purchased some seeds from this cross from DILS. Already the first year after sowing some of them bloomed. The trumpets where nice and I decided to dig up one bulb that I wanted to pollinate the following year.
The bulb where planted together with some other bulbs, not seedlings. The bulb are rather dark. When it started to grow it come up with 2 stems but only with 3 buds. When it opened it's first flower it was a beautiful white and light pink flower with strong fragrance. Since there where only 3 flowers they where rather large.

 

The first 2 flowers was pollinated with pollen from L. henryi. The last flower was pollinated with pollen from these OTs:
Alexandra, Conca D'or, 4n Black Beauty (?), Miss Libby, Pizzazz, OT R93/25.
When the seed pods started to swell I was really surprised to see that the pod pollinated with 4n OT pollen was the only one that grew normally and actually gave me a pod filled with excellent seeds. The pods from crosses with L. henryi was looking not so well but had a few good seeds that germinated normally
.

 

 

These seedlings are from the cross with OT pollen.



The year after, in 2012 the bulbs had grown bigger and one of the stems was looking like this:

 

The flowers was pollinated with different pollen but not all of the pollinations gave seeds. But pollinated with pollen from these lilies I got seeds:
Ryirube seedling ( I think it was a yellow one), dark purple Ryirube, brown pendant Ryirube, Starburst Sensation + Avocado, Robina. All these crosses gave many seeds.
For next year the bulbs have grown too big for my small greenhouse. But this lily produces many bulblets and I had some in the greenhouse from 2011 that I had planted in a larger pot. They will have some flowers this year.

Since last year I have been wondering why this lily are fertile when pollinated with OTs and not 2n trumpets. The seeds comes from a friend of mine in Denmark but I bought them from DILS since I didn't knew him at that time. He have also been able to do crosses with L. sargentiae and OTs. I don't know if that's why this lily are able to pollinate this lily with OT pollen or if it's something else. But I'm looking forward to see the flowers from these crosses.

Lilies I want / are in search

Do any of you know where to find 4n White Henryi or 4n Lilium henryi? Robert Griesbach sent me seeds last year of 4n White Henryi type. Hopefully some of them will bloom this year. But if someone knows where to find 4n White Henryi or 4n Lilium henryi, let me know.

How to pollinate a lily

A few years after my first lilies where planted I found out that it was possible to grow lilies from seeds. But many seed companies only sell seeds from species or strains. But I wanted to grow hybrid seeds. From DILS I was told how to do this. This is how I pollinate lilies:

First I need something to label the cross, I do it simple a kind of paper that are used for making lunch packets and some thread. It's important that the paper don't get damaged by water. You also need a pen that are water resistent.

 

 

The next tool are a cotton stick. A small brush are ok too but it needs to be cleaned well between every new cross.

This is the flower with anthers and the stigma, the stigma is in the center. The pollen can be used when the flower are totally open unless it's a chanse that insects eat the pollen first. If that's possible the anthers can be picked before the flower have opened totally.

 

A closer look at the anthers.

 

The cotton stick are rubbed on the anthers untill it's full of pollen.

The flower that shall be pollinated are pollinated before the flower are totally opened. If pollination is done out in the garden, it is very important to pollinated flower before it has opened, otherwise the insects have transferred pollen from other flowers. If the stigma wrapped in aluminum foil before and after pollination, one would avoid this.
The pollen are rubbed on the stigma untill it's totally covered with pollen. Since I do most of my pollinations in a greenhouse there are few insects that feed on the pollen. Last year I didn't cover the stigma with aluminium foil and got plenty of seeds. Flowers that where not pollinated did not produce any seeds.

After pollination the cross are labeled: mother x father.

If the pollination are successful the stigma starts to point up a few days after pollination, and after the petals have fallen off a swelling seed capsule.