Hello
Is there someone who can tell me if these plants can be grown from seed and how long it takes to have a blooming plant.
Thanks for your help
Thalictrum
Growing Hemerocallis, Iris and lily from seed
I do iris, and daylilies from seed here in the USA, takes 2-3 years from seed to bloom here, never done lilies from seed except for rain lilies and I planted them last year in May and they are like blades of grass still
D
Yes, any plant that produces viable seed can be grown from seed.
Irislover is right on: 2-3 years, even for species iris.
For members of the Lilium genus, it depends on the species.
--- L. formosanum and L. philippinense may even bloom the first season from seed.
--- L. martagon may take 5-7 years to bloom.
--- Most hybrids wil take 1-3 years.
See here: http://www.lilies.org/growingfromseed.html
I'll be growing my first Hemerocallis from seed in 2009: a cross I made with H. 'Siloam Ury Winnifred' and H. altissima.
This message was edited Nov 14, 2008 8:59 PM
Hello Lily lovers!
I have been gardening for years and my favorite plant is lilies. Since I never belonged to a group before, I didn't save seed. This year I saved seeds from quite a few, but I have a problem. All the lily seed I have seen is light brown paper-like. I recently opened a pod from Oriental lily "Simplon", and about 100 tiny light orange seeds came out. I bought 10 of these lilies last year on the clearance table (my favorite place), so they were done blooming. This year they put on a fabulous show for me.
Can anyone help about the seeds being so tiny? I have never witnessed this before.
Thanks,
Carol
Okay I have no idea how I came across this post but I think I can help you with this. It sounds like your seeds aren't viable or other words didn't get pollinated properly. I have heard this is very common with lily seeds and when I have saved them have found some seeds are like that while others are perfectly good. So what you need to do is look at them really well and see if they appear to have a darker embryo looking thing in the middle. You can do this by a method called candling but I have had good luck just using my eyeballs in a well lit room. The ones that don't have the embryo are not good so just toss them - another thing that helps but can be a little messy is to put the seeds in a shallow sided bowl and lightly blow. All the un - viable seeds should float up and out of the bowl while the viable ones being heavier will stay in. Good luck. : )
Your problem is that most lilies are self sterile. You need to pick out and plant some different Oriental varieties. To ensure getting more good seeds and less chaff, you can hand pollinate by transfering pollen fom one variety to the stigma of another different variety. Star Gazers are a popular Oriental lily that you can usually find available at local nurseries. You can google search for mail order nurseries that will provide a lot more varieties than you can find locally. Hope this helps!
Be very careful if you use the blow method. Viable seed can still be very light.
Notice that Pardalinum said different varieties. The 10 Simplon lilies that you have will not pollinate each other because they are the same variety.
If you have viable seed, they might look like this, with the embryo looking like a darker line in an overall lighter color seed. Maybe my eyes just are not that good, but I don't recommend trying to eyeball seed when your not sure what you are looking for. It's hard enough as it is. Put a light behind the seed so the light shows through, and you will be able to see any embryos much easier. I use a toy tracing table, or a photo slide (or negative) viewing apparatus works well. (But nothing hot, of course.)
Hi All,
From all your comments I am assuming the seeds are not viable. They are too tiny to see anything such as an embryo. I had a feeling this might be the problem as I have seeds from some trumpets and orientals which look nothing like these seeds.
Well, next year I will try again. I have over 250 lilies, so I should have something viable. My little border lilies produced plenty of nice seeds. And, I'' keep in touch with your forum to find out more.
Thanks all so much,
Carol
p.s. I'll be bummed-out all night!
BUT . . . . I do hear from the most experienced seed growers (not just here on Davesgarden) that even they miss embryos in seeds sometimes. If you have a lot of "chaff", and you have the time, you may want to just plant all of it en mass and see if anything at all comes up.
This also can help: http://members.shaw.ca/lilynet/netlil/id52.htm
The pic of six seeds can further help you discern viable vs. non-viable.
Thanks so much for the article and identification of seeds. This will come in handy for me!
My seeds were definitely not viable; they were the size of a pin's head or less. Oh well, I'm learning and you have all given me great help.
Thanks again,
Carol
I had a pod "look ripe" last year (this was before I understood a thing about viable seed characteristics) , open pollinated, pulled the pod off before frost, set it in the garage. In November I walked by that shelf (having forgotten all about that pod, of course)and brought it inside. Then stuck it in the Lazy Susan where I forgot about it until January. Came across it and decided I should just throw all of that seed in a bag. Again, set it aside for a couple of months. In 8 weeks there was bumper crop germination! I could hardly believe it. And I'm still growing them out as I type.
So, as Lefty says, you never know, it might just be worth a try. What do you have to lose, right?
Here comes my favorite Rozanne Rozannadanna line:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Well, I guess I don't have to say it. But Mag's experience is not so rare, and the advice we hear from people or read on the internet, etc., isn't set in stone.
I always say:
there is only one unbroken rule in nature, and that is that there are no unbroken rules.
See? It just goes to show you, it's always something.