Lily with 11 Buds

Nearly all my lilies are new for me this year. I have them in large pots on my 6th floor balcony. This one has 11 buds. Is that unusual? I think the next one scheduled to bloom is Samur.

Hokey Smokes, I don't know, I don't have lilies like that. I can't wait to see it bloom!! :) What are you feeding those things? :) LOL

Diann

WOW! That is amazing!

You said most were new this year. Where did you get them? When did you start them? ...And (lol)...What size pots are they in?

That's going to be something else! Does the stem unusually thick, flat or have ridges, rather than being smooth?

I got them from John Scheepers, planted them last October and put them in foam pots about 13" across. I must have 10 lilies to a pot, half Asiatic, half LA and Orienpet. They do pretty well for me. I also have a pot of White Stargazers coming back from last year, mostly from bulbils. They also have buds. I use potting soil with superior drainage just from adding perlite but also using a wick to drain away extra water (tapla's advice from over on the Container Gardening forum). I just mixed bulb food in with the potting soil when planting, but nothing since.

The pic shows what came up in May. After they were finished blooming I cut down the foliage.

I buy new ones every year...so many lilies, so little time. LOL It does cost a bit, but the reward is worth it.

Edited to say: I'll have to check out the stem in the morning. I have many with 8 buds, some with more, but the 11 bud lily was the one with the most buds.

This message was edited Jun 21, 2008 10:53 PM

Here's a pic of one of the pots and the planting scheme. It's like a lasagna scheme in a pot. I must have about 50 bulbs planted in each pot.

"Does the stem unusually thick, flat or have ridges, rather than being smooth? "

Moby, what would it mean if the stems were flat or had ridges? Just curious!!!

Amazing to get so many bulbs in one pot! I have never seen buds packed so close together. I've had lilies with more buds per stem than that but they were arranged further apart.

Susan

ecmama ~ a stem that is wide and flat is called 'fasciated' and is essentially 2 or more stems fused together, resulting in many blooms on that stem. It's just an anomaly and nothing wrong with the plant.

And it's really cool. :)

I, too, am loaded with buds. This plant has 12 buds. When I saw the small buds forming, with little side "budlets" I assumed the sidecar buds would wither. As you can see (and maybe count), they all matured. I live on a semi-major street but still have been ferocious about keeping the deer away and we have lost large lily buds to the deer lunchroom.

This is 2 views of the same plant. In another photo, you will see that these are part of a forest of lilies. Maybe planting them close (with friends) has given them encouragement.
Not all my lilies have more than 8 buds, as a matter of fact a few have only 1 or 2, so it doesn't have anything to do with the fertilizer. I guess happy lilies are fertile lilies.

As you can see, the area is pretty thick with lilies. I only thinned out a few this year, but will have to thin out some more. Between asians and orientals, there are more than 60 plants, so I expect to have blooms throughout July and August.

Moby, it's not fasciated, just prolific. Most of these bulbs have at least 8 buds and none of them is fasicated. Maybe it's the variety.

Cathy, did your buds ever look as packed as mine? I'm assuming they'll spread out more as the plant grows before flowering.

ecmama, welcome from me! I try to plant pots where plants would start showing up early and bloom most of the summer. It's always worked except for the one winter where the weather was horrendous. Even then I had a few lilies. Here's one from May 2005. Later I had a huge crop of lilies.

I think that's great that you got such a nice juicy bulbs ready to give you lots of blooms. :) I usually don't see that many buds unless they've been in the ground for a couple years.

On 6/3, I took this photo and figured that like my peonies, was pretty certain half of these would fail to thrive. My mistake. Since it came up from last year, I'm not even certain which bloom to expect. It's going to be either dark red or yellowish with brown tips.

Can't wait to see both of our lilies bloom. With all these buds they should look spectacular.

Wow! Those are huge pots!! I never would have thought to plant a pot up like that.....something to try ; )