Hi everyone,
Last year, I planted new flower beds with lilies in clusters of five to seven. The soil was pure sand, so first I grew and turned under a crop of clover, then I added lots of compost, beneficial microbes, mycorhyzal fungi, earthworm castings, alfalfa meal and kelp meal. I may have overdone it...I was completely unprepared for what came up this year. I'm used to lilies increasing over time, especially the asiatics, but this is crazy: my original clusters of five have come up this year in clusters of 30-40 or more! Honest, I counted! How on earth will they all survive, all bunched up tight like that? The shorter ones might extinguish themselves, for lack of light, or they might all get botrytis from the crowding, or who knows what.
Any suggestions for the best way to gently separate some of them out? Do I need to wait until Fall? Any hope they'll just all figure it out on their own? Anybody want some of them? I can be reasonably sure of the cultivar in most cases.
Sorry for asking so many questions, and thanks!
Toooooo much of a good thing! (thinning lilies)
LOL Sorry ~ I can't help but laugh. Guess you're just too good at growing lilies. Do you think they are all going to be blooming size? Do some look like just a leaf coming out? Those are tiny babies and won't do much this year.
You could try to separate a few out but it could be more work than it's worth. On the other hand, if there are so many and you lose a few then you haven't lost too much .
I have a couple patches that made me drop my jaw at their increase but decided I'll take care of them in the fall.
:D I don't know if I'm good at lilies per se, but I s'pose I'm good at building soil, and I really doctored up those beds something fierce. Everything I put in there has come up at least double my expectations. 'course this is my first experience with ornamental beds...I grew up gardening veggies almost exclusively.
There are a whole lot getting ready to bloom this year, and the rest are too small, but already full-blown lily-shaped, if you know what I mean. I didn't count the single leaves coming up; I see quite a few of those, too, though.
Yeah, clearly I could afford to lose a few, but should I be concerned that the crowding could cost me entire clusters? Hrmmm, the tallest ones should still survive, right?
Thanks Moby. I always appreciate your lily expertise!
Expertise? LOL Let's just go with 'experience' ~ there are much brighter crayons in the lily box here.
Without knowing just how crammed your lilies actually are, you could go in and rescue the largest lilies and let the others fend for themselves.
I grow pixie lilies, and they multiply like that. I let them bloom, and then divide them in the fall. I spray some baking soda on them to prevent disease:
1 tsp baking soda
a couple of drops dish soap, mild such as Ivory Snow
1 quart water
simply because they are so crowded, they are prone to botrytis. But otherwise they seem to be fine, crowded like that.
And I have sand also. Plants do expand so much faster in the sandy soil.
This message was edited May 12, 2007 8:29 PM
I'd leave them be until fall.
Thanks, everybody! I'll try the recipe, and wait until Fall to mess with them. Who knows, maybe I'll get some killer photos this summer. *bounce bounce bounce*
lol You do that!
Wait! WAIT!!!
A whole teaspoon of soap per quart of water?
Sounds like a Jerry Baker recommendation to me.
A teaspoon per gallon is still too much in my opinion.
Try less than one-eight of a teaspoon per quart. And make sure you use a MILD soap like palmolive or dove, not dawn. Strong soaps, especially, will breakdown the cuticle (waxy coating) on the plant and make them more vulnerable to insects, disease and drying out. The soap is only needed as a surfactant, to spread the active ingredient (baking soda) around and make it stick better.
I never measure. I just put a squirt in my quart spray bottle and I've always used Dawn. Also, I've never used the baking soda. Was I just lucky? Although after last year, I decided that this year I'm going to use a commercial product.
If you are using soap to combat insects like aphids, Beaker, then the soap is the active ingredient. Dawn would work best against the insects, but is still hard on the plants. And even though Dawn would work best, it's not needed, and a mild dish soap, in practicality, will do just fine.
I changed my recipe above to a few drops, lest someone over do it with the soap. However, I first saw the recipe here on Daves Garden, and it called for a teaspoon soap, and that is what I used on the lilies with no harm (maybe I was lucky). But I also used Ivory Snow, which is what I wash dishes with.
Here's where I got it from origionally
http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=2460256
And here's the recipe from Plantlilies.com
http://www.plantlilies.com/read/fungal.html
But I wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone killing their lilies, so let's change it. And Leftwood is right, it's only being used for a sticking agent.
Hmmm. Obviously, all that soap isn't that big of a deal, but I can't imagine why so much was called for. I never noticed any cohesive tendencies with a baking soda and water mix. Maybe it keeps the emulsification emulsified longer. (The soda stays in suspension better.) But if that's why it is there, It'd be much safer to just shake the mix more often.
Do we have a resident chemist here?
I'm a resident chemist but I don't think this has a whole lot to do with chemistry. I use just a couple of drops of dish soap in a spray bottle. Seems like a lot of soap would plug up the pores or whatever they are called (I'm not a botanist!).
I sure don't want to be responsible for harming anyones lilies. I did use the mixture, and had very little botrytis problem, last year. And the lilies are back this year, having increased greatly and looking healthy.
I have also used the mixture with hort oil, rather than the soap on the phlox in my nursery.
But lets go with a couple of drops as Pard says.
Would plant pores be stomata?
Oh yes! Now I remember. I was just too lazy to look it up!
I have no clue how I knew that, LOL.