How baby lilies relocate

Wallaby -

I have....
Crinum amabile
C. amabile has a confusing and hard-to-sort-out history. Likely, it has been confused many times with C. augustum and similar plants. It is treated as a distinct species here but is considered by many to be a hybrid between C. zeylanicum and C. procerum. In turn, C. procerum is considered by some to be a variant of C. asiaticum. http://crinum.iconx.com/html/cinumspecies.html
I'll post a pic of it below (it is white with purple stripe down the middle of each petal).

Beautiful!

Wallaby -

Here's the other crinum I have. I don't normally like "white" flowers 'cause I'm into vibrant colors, but this one is really very pretty. I have a better pic of it, but it's not uploaded yet. Don't know the name... someone sent me this one.

The other crinum I posted above (amabile) are from my grandmother. Don't know where she got them because I never knew she had them before she passed away. I got most of her plants when she died... I had NEVER seen this one bloom so I was VERY surprised and tickled pink when I saw it. I never knew such flowers existed!! (so naive... LOL!)

wow, they're both gorgeous!

I can visualize the pleated roots drawing tighter and putting force on the bulb, but when I try to imagine the bulb moving down, all I can visualize is the soil under the bulb getting packed more and more tightly as the roots drawn the bulb down. I wonder how the lilies avoid getting their progress halted by the soil itself?

Pirl, I have a powerful microscope, and if you want, I can bring it home from work and we can check out some lily roots when you come by. Just say the word and I'll haul it home. It's not very large, but it weighs like a vacuum cleaner!

Check this thread out. The link is kind of in the middle of the thread but I thought it had some interesting thoughts.

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/pbs/2005-July/021947.html

Well this one has pictues scroll down abit for pictures and an explanation.

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2004/011204/log.html

Leftwood, I had been thinking of the vertical lines on my Lilium bulblets, I know they are not contractile, but do wonder if there is another means of expansion in the absence of contractile roots.

kooger, thanks for all the info, and inspiration, now we will all have to try it!

intercessor, that is a great link on the srgc! And people kill ants, little do they know what damage they may be doing to their natural environment. My neighbour only has to see an ant and she poisons them, they do go into her house but she keeps honey close to the back door, I couldn't even try to tell her to change her habits!

I have had a steady increase of ants in my garden over the last 3 or 4 years, this year I have ant mounds by the dozen in some places, but they do me no harm and I'm sure they have their uses. I took a palm from it's pot last year in the greenhouse, out fell an ant's nest with all their pupae. I placed the plant back, the ants went to work and gathered up all their young into a pile next to the nearest pot to it with another palm the same. Then they proceeded to move them systematically back into the original pot. What marvellous co-ordination they had, safety first, I felt they were extrememly good parents! Some buttefly or moth caterpillars are also taken to ant's nest by the ants, they then proceed to live on the pupae, nature is so complex!

It was interesting to see how the bulbs elongated themselves trying to go deeper. I had taken a young bulb from the side of my Hymenocallis Sulphur Queen, it was difficult to remove from the pot so I dug down, sliced between the parent and the bulb, and pulled. There was a small base in place which appeared to be making nodules ready to root, and a couple of layers of bulb around it which had detached. I planted it at about the same level as it had been, the leaves remained green for some time then died back a week or so ago, although the parent bulb hasn't gone dormant. I lifted it as I was sending it to someone. The intact bulb in the centre had elongated quite a bit, leaving the surround detached layers much higher. The basal area had also grown noticeably more bumpy nodules, ready to take root. It would seem to me that the energy in the leaves, which were reasonable in size, had transferred to preparing the bulb and roots for growth, exhausting the reserves, then dying back. A good reason not to cut off the leaves? I have heard so often that you should cut off leaves in order to preserve energy, I'm not so sure.

LAKelley, so nice to have your Grandmothers plants, and you are so lucky to have a Crinum amabile! It was a C X amabile with purple foliage I had longed to have, and the purple one I had and stupidly lost was a heartbreak! It was doing OK for a start, then suddenly gave up the ghost, just too cold a winter for it, I would bring it inside if I had the chance again!

One I bought last year was C amoenum which looks similar to your other one, very pretty, it didn't do much last year at all, a mature bulb can take some time to re-establish and last summer was cold. This year it has started to move, and is just putting on a bit bigger green leaves. The two I had survive from young plants I got in early June last year were on finger thicknes, they have really started to put on some good growth. They are Ellen Bosenquet and Summer Nocturne.

Here is C amoenum

http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/image?query=%27crinum+amoenum%27

This I took of my two young ones, the smaller one in the middle is C amoenum

Very interesting information!!!

Thanks, Lilly, but don't bring home a microscope! I'll leave the process to Mother Nature and be happy with the results.

Pirl, You started a humdinger. This has been fascinating to read. And it also makes me wonder why I never have thought about how bulbs self propel themselves into the soil, I must have a pea brain Thanks for the great question and thank you to all those who responded with such enlightening answers. Patti

I'm enjoying it so much, too!

Thanks Kooger. You'll have to tell me how to do that. Much easier than saying the same thing over and over every year.

One thing about your weight on the scales. I have noticed that the scales in the bottom of the boxes I keep the scales in, have almost always grown better. Last year I put a book on top of the box and everything did grow better. Never realized why. One word. Pressure.

Interesting.
inanda

Great thread!!

I have about 3 trays of bubils that I've pulled off of different stems and some that i dug up. Do I need to bring them in for the winter or if I mulch heavily will they survive?

Some are so tiny they only have 1 small leaf.

Thanks!

YW, inanda. You da 'man' when it comes to lilies!! LOL I figure if I know half of what you know, I may get somewhere.

The pressure thing is interesting, I think. Sure seems to make a difference. My first attempt I put the baggie in a dark cupboard like I was told, and it rotted. I almost didn't try again but I'm a stubborn Dutch girl. :) Then beaker told me to put weight on them and it worked like a charm. I can't wait to do more.

The quote boxes are simple. Just type [quote] and then highlight the part you want to quote, copy it, paste it behind the word quote, then type [/ quote] at the end of the quoted words. Hit preview to check if you did it right before you hit send. (leave out the space after the backslash '/' ...I had to put that in to stop it from making another blue box. :)

Merci bien or... biae dankie

inanda

thanks wallaby for pointing me to this thread. extremely interesting and informative.

Well Wallaby... just come on down to FL and get one (crinum)!! :-)

That's OK voss,

LAKelley, how I would Love to come on down, to TX as well as FL!!! Other places too, I will just have to do a virtual tour!

I was neglectful (more like forgetful) in mentioning what one of the links pointed out: that stoloniferous bulbs go down by stoloning downward, rather than using contractile roots. This I have observed repeatedly in seedling pots of Lilium michiganense. Whether this species uses contractile roots in addition is doubtful. Scales in this and several other stoloniferous species are rather delicate, and separate from the basal stem quite easily. Even more easily that Fritallaria rice. I would certainly think it would be impossible to pull a bulb down with breaking them all off. In addition, stolons wander horizontally (generally), again making the feat implausible.

Ian Young's Bulb Log is always a most informative column. He is one the Greats among bulb enthusiasts. He stayed at my house for a few days while on his speaking tour in America. His talk on Fritillaria that he gave to our MN chapter of NAARGS of was much more than just interesting.

Continuing with the discussion of this thread, you may have caught that Ian wrote that bulbs tend to reach the correct depth after about 3 years. And this would most asuredly apply to bulbs that grow large. During this time bulbs are not the big honkers that some people envision, and can "slip" through soil more easily. Not to necessarily say that larger bulbs stop descending, but certainly at a slower rate. This is what seems to inspire that link of skeptical writing. As for the bulb itself actually growing downward (except in the case of stoloniferous types) as that writer suggests, I am even more skeptical.

Rick

This message was edited Oct 5, 2006 5:08 PM

I just happened to need to dig a bulb and thought for kicks I'd take a pic of the contractile roots. I think they look like worms.

Nice roots, Moby. That one looks great!

Off topic a bit but I had a few Oriental lilies in a pot, waiting to plant as I killed off the bed of Aegopodium, and here is a comparison of the typical Muscadet lily (just arrived) with another lily that was in the ground for a few years. I'm not certain which one it is. The additional bulbs that may show in the photo were the babies of this big mother bulb.

That is one big bulb. How many stems did it send up last year?

One. I feel awful saying that but it was a beauty! I just don't have Moby's magic touch.

One really great stem is awsome! I am sure the stem count for any given type increases some with the increase in bulb size, but it may also affect the BLOOM count per stem as well.

Awww..... not so sure if I have a magic touch or am just lucky with good soil. ;)

Last fall I got a 'Leslie Woodriff' supersized bulb from buggycrazy. It was 8" in diameter. It did produce "just" one stem, but it was 7' tall with 19 blooms. I'm really anxious to see what she does next year!

In some parts of the garden the soil is a frothy, sandy loam. Its amazing how deep those contractile roots will pull them there! There are lots of dog tooth violets (which is in the lily family) that grow wild here, and those tiny bulbs have a strange contractile root. A bulb the size of a bean will often be 8" or more under the earth. Makes it really difficult to move them into the garden, lol!

Moving them, when we don't know where the baby bulbs have relocated, is a major problem!

This more than one stem per bulb thing has me questioning. Time to start a new thread. on this.

Moby's the one with the experience with that phenomenon.

OK Lefty, where's that thread??

Not a lily bulb, but my Hymenocallis festalis, one of many offsets I transplanted when they got congested, unfortunately I lost most of them so the small ones now have to mature.

I thought I would post it here as I could see thick roots through the bottom, and it really needed to be put into a larger, deeper pot.

Well they have very contracted contractile roots! Two together, there is one in the middle which looks to have already expanded. Of course they had nowhere to go but up the side of the pot.

Great photo! Some look like they're accordian pleated.

wow! neat shot!

BUMP!

I am thoroughly confused. Here's my story. I have the leftover Easter lilies from last Easter. They were in pots all winter long, outside. There's greenery all over the pots and I can recognize different shoots in the pots. Some pots have as many as 6-8 new shoots growing in there. I need to know simply and understandably, how to get the shoots into individual pots to help them grow along for this Easter season. HELP ME PLEASE (Use Vincent Prices' voice from the movie, "The Fly..."

Thanks.

I always plant them right after the flowers are done. At this point you could tease them apart and in zone 9a you could plant them now - same level as they're now growing in soil. Keep every baby and you'll have beautiful blooms. They probably can take some shade in Texas.

Gymgirl, if you want to move all the lilies in one pot into individual pots just tip them out carefully, separate the bulbs keeping as much compost around the roots as possible and pot up.

Water well once but don't flood them, only water sparingly then until they show signs of growing again, but don't let them dry out.

They should take root OK and grow on if they are still small.

Keep them in a shady spot out of winds so they don't get distressed. I'm not sure what your temps are now, they shouldn't be too hot while disturbed.

If anyone else better understands conditions in TX please speak up!

Thanks, Pirl and Wallaby1.

I got confused by the pics of the tall "stalk" then what looks like roots on the end of the stalk, then ANOTHER onion looking bulb with more roots on that. Still not sure where the new bulbs? come into play with the transplanting phase. Do I pull off that bottom bulb and separate that into the little bulbs? Is that how it multiplies from the main stalk? Please advise. Use pics if you have to. Thanks!

I think what you mention is the roots on the stem, many lilies are stem rooting, which make above the bulb as well as roots at the base of the bulb, which you mention as onion looking, that is the bulb.

Make sure, as pirl suggested, they are planted at the same depth as they need these roots.

Don't separate the new bulb, is it the scales you mean? Lily bulbs are made up of scales joined to a base plate, just take the whole new growth as it is.

The parent bulb will be the big one, the new ones will grow from the sides of it, leave it whole too and replant.

Scaling can be done to make new bulbs but as you have offset bulbs you will be best to leave that alone, it is a longer job and can be tricky. It requires some scales to be taken from the outer edge of the bulb and placing in compost, they can make new tiny bulbs from those.

They are intriguing in how they grow. I'd do exactly as wallaby said - no detaching anything. The plant "knows" what to do: trust it.