My favorite time of year

Well, whenever my favorite lily businesses post their new offerings for spring or fall, well..it is certain to be a favorite time of year, right?

Look who's up and running already...others are sure to follow soon. Let me know if you see any others, will you? Always fun lily perusing, isn't it?

http://farawayflowers.vstore.ca/

I also admit to loving this addition to B & D lilies website, for all of you species lovers out there; a wealth of information here ;)

http://bdlilies.com/research.html

I knew I should not have gone there!!

Oh Mags, you're such an enabler! :)

Thanks for the link Tracey - she has some really nice stuff. Some cool new OT's too. I will have to cave in this year.

Oh, do cave. Ramona has some of the nicest stuff around. :)

Very nice stuff, as always!

Oh, hope someones does a co-op maybe???

I am not volunteering...I am sooo not organized enough!!

Those bulbs are some of the nicest around. The selection is usually pretty unique. I've come to really look forward to FF's listing each fall/winter.

You folks are looking at buying already? I guess when it gets cold we go into dream land...

Pages full of lily colors danced in my head ;)

Isn't that what winter is for????

It's one of those things that surely gets me through a long winter.

Winter is for seed extraction and sorting, trading and researching. Maybe some writing, and oh yeah, selecting and purchasing a few plants. (Well, I did just get a shipment of Chinese stuff.)

Ohh, Lefty, do tell.....

Well in actuallity, I think I just finished extraction proceedures today. My "new method" for Ruellia humilis didn't work so good. If anyone is going to want that, they will get a ton of what may look like good seed, but is probably half good, half bad. Don't most people find that once you gather seeds of same for a couple years, you find a better way?

I've set up my seeding spread sheets, and am busy filling them out. Let me tell you, it is so EASY to just go back to last year's sheets (for instance), and find out if you remembered to plant a certain seed or not, and if anything came up. Seems I always find misplaced packages of seed that is then too late to plant for that season. I use to do a lot a drooling over catalog pics, but now I use that time for organization that really pays off later on.

I've never written for the Lily Society, but I do regularly write for our Minnesota Rock Garden Society's Rock Plant Notes. And thanks for reminding me, I promised one for the December issue.

Oh w a a a a a i i i t t t . . . . . . could you have meant the Chinese stuff, Mag?
All species, and often just numbered (or might as well be). Lilies, Polyganatums, Lilies, Frits, Corydalis (I succumb to the Janis Ruksans lure), and did I mention lilies?

Yes, I was referring to the Chinese delivery. But the information above proves that you are much better than I am about being organized. Thus, I continue to drool (get the mop ;) ) I try really hard and I am getting better, bit by bit.

So..what lilies did you obtain from China? I'd love to know ;)

Me too!

Maxine

this chinese lily torture...

I have visions of lily petals being dropped on ones head.... (Chinese lily torture)

I use spreadsheets to track all of my bulbs :-)

Can't wait to see them!

Lefty, do you have any pictures of the new seeds?

Really envy you to have the determination and get up and go to start new seeds.

Maxine

While most asiatic, orientals and the like look like this:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=5794922
I thought the pic below was interesting. It is seed of Lilium michiganense.

Oh my, they are really viable, aren't they?

Maxine

Definitely healthy embryos, but not more so than the others. Martagon seed anatomy is similar to michiganense. I haven't had enough experience to say if it is a delayed hypogeal trait or not.

How cool...baby lilies....

nanny had wondered about a co-op for Faraway Flowers, I am guessing that if there is a classified ad, a co-op will not happen, but I'll take 20% savings!

Check it out:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/928682/

Yes I have looked trying to decide.....

Glad you found it. The Classified Ads is not as visible as it used to be from my DG homepage. I kind of had to hunt for it.

I really don't have room...and I am saving for some special daylilies...but I did have to order 3 bulbs of Eyeliner. I passed on it last spring and kicked myself later for it! lol

'Eyeliner' was a really nice selection. You wouldn't think that edging would show up, but it sure does ;)

I'm sure you'll enjoy that and I bet you'll find room, don't we all? Enjoy!

B&D is having a 50% off sale on some of their "economy grade" items:

http://www.lilybulb.com/dentsale.html

And Buggy Crazy has a sale too, for those of you lucky enough to be able to plant still.

She has listed her seeds too.

http://buggycrazy.vstore.ca/

Buggycrazy has Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) seed. Not often found, in fact almos tnever, IMO. I grow it as an annual here, or rather, it grows as an annual here. The welcome tiny, tiny groundcover (smaller than Baby Tears) shows up in a few of my pots every year. Smells like creme de menthe (or however you spell that). you can't beat that!

Goodness, she has a lot of choice lily seed too . . .

I am swimming in lily seed. They have been at room temp. for 2 months so i have no idea how viable they are now.

I was looking and then just made myself leave...can't order one more thing until I have paid for all that I have on order...and that's final!!

The general feeling is that lily seed lose significant viability around 9 months at room temp. 2 months is certainly nothing to worry about. I have had lily seed at room temp for the entire winter before. I had plenty of good germination the following spring. This was before I knew about candling, so I can't really say with any authority if there was any degradation or not. But there was certainly plenty of life.

I am swimming in lily seed.

What a predicament. (chuckle) Remember when we used to jump into piles of leaves in the fall? Now that was fun!

Hmmm. This would make a good experiment. Andy, you could think of yourself as the Norm Deno of lilies. Candle a batch of same seed, and divide them up to be germinated at different times: 2 months, 10 months, 15 months,20 months, etc. See what happens. Actually, I suspect this has probably been talked about extensively on the Lilium Group, and people like Darm C. have probably already done similar experiments. Maybe it's worth search the Group's files?

Well I can tell you all about the 18 month benchmark. I left a bunch of paper cups of lily seeds on an east facing sill for a year and a half. Honestly, I love my lily seeds but get sick and tired of dealing with so many of them that I would otherwise have to pack up, label and freeze. I really do have my breaking point where I have to just admit I get a bit lazy. Anyway, after this 1.5 years of sitting around on the sill collecting dust and having the summer sun hitting them all morning each morning last summer, I decided to mix them all together and dump them into the compost bin. I stirred them around a bit (that's stirred, not shaken) and gave them a little pat down. A couple of weeks later, voila! I had quite a patch of lily grass in there!