Selection: Lilies

The first seedlings are coming up, the cross between my white seedling and various tangos.

Will be interesting to see the results.

Planted last summer's lily seeds.

I did not go crazy this year, so there were only 17 pots I needed to plant. A bit later than last year, but still early enough to have healthy plants next spring. 

From Wednesday night to yesterday have been a marvelous buzz of lily activity. My first attendance at a NALS (North American Lily Society) conference was a blast. It was great to meet so many people I only knew from email over the years.

To top things off, I won 3 "second place" ribbons for 4 stems I entered. Not bad for a first timer, I think.

More information and photos will eventually be on LDIS. 

Maureen Janson of NALS just sent this note to the Yahoo Lilium group:

It is with a sad heart that I am letting everyone know that Gene Fox passed away on January 13th at the hospital. He had had a massive heart attack.

Gene was past president of the North American Lily Society. He was a very good lily grower especially of Martagon lilies.

He will be missed by many people.

Maureen

Gene (Eugene) authored a book on Martagons last year and was a great inspiration and encouragement to myself and many others.

Gene's book can be ordered online . 

The seeds I planted from Joe H 2 weeks ago, started to come up today.

Received approx 100 tango seeds from Jan de Vries in Holland yesterday, and planted them today. 

Planting more lily seeds today. 3 Lots from Joe H, and more of my own.

Expecting approx 100 tango seeds from Holland from Jan de Vries.

Where the heck do I put all of them? 

Last weekend I planted 22 lots of seed. All were asiatics, and most were tango at least on one side. Last year I started planting seeds mid-November and as a result transplanted almost inch-sized bulbs in September this year.

Got more to plant next week or so...

Today I feel sad, because a very dear friend has quit the lily business. I can't reveal who, until he has made his own announcement, but he will be severely missed in the lily community.

Received my bulb order from The Lily Nook yesterday. I only ordered 3 bulbs: Olina, Orange Art, and Pup Art. I found Pup Art locally after placing my order, but Pup Art is such a great lily, I decided not to change my order.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the large size of the bulbs. Well done, Nigel and crew.

Today I have been "working up a sweat" and clearing a square yard of quack grass so I can plant lilies. I was surprised it was 30°C at 3PM.

Moved poor 'Pup Art', which had been in a pot since I bought it, and it is trying to set seed in 2 pods.

I had planned to get a fridge to store bulbs but I may not have to. I may have enough space after all.

Got most of my hybridizing done this weekend. With the extreme heat, most lilies are fading fast and I'm not sure how well my crosses are taking. We'll find out in a few months I guess.

The new website for the Online Lily Register is now active: http://www.lilyregister.com/

Yesterday, David Simms, webmaster of the North American Lily Society (NALS), passed on part of a message from Victoria Matthews (International Lily Registrar with Royal Horticultural Society [RHS] in the UK):

Regarding copyright, I have spoken to the RHS and in fact, although the Register and Supplements bear the copyright sign, there is no copyright on scientific information such as descriptions of plants. After all, it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to write a plant description using different words. It is not possible to copyright for example, "flowers yellow with brown spots, up-facing, appearing in May".

This is a great step toward taking the Lily Register on the Lily Gallery site into new ways of sharing information. We encourage input from all lily fanciers by making use of the suggestion box.

Forgot to give the link - www.lily-gallery.com/register

A week of looking after the register has kept me busy. Not a bad thing.

Spoke to David Sims, webmaster of NALS, today and we talked about a variety of topics.

Some things I'm not ready to talk about in public, but he was wondering about a NALS wiki and if I could help. He would like to bring all lily descriptions in, but after initial research, that won't be easy. Also, before spending a lot of effort, we need RHS to confirm whether the data is copyright or can be used for the public good. David will be approaching the RHS and hopefully we will get an answer soon.

In the mean time, CSV downloads are available. There will likely be some applications sprouting up using the data. Joe Halinar is working on an application right now that can be used on a laptop at a lily show. The "open" concept of the Linux world is really appealing. Why should one entity claim to own information that is submitted to them by others?

Feel free to leave a comment. 

Spoke with Michael Homick today and we agreed that I take over the online register, until such time that the RHS has their own online version.

Darm Crook has agreed to lily articles, so the Lily Gallery will be buzzing with activity.

Joe Halinar has been working hard at a downloadable database, so hopefully between Joe and myself we will have a cd version for lily judges this year. 

I planted 11 sets of seedlings last year (from 2004 seeds) and of the 11, I see 10 up so far. Now let's see how many will flower...

I'm very excited about what the results could be. See hybrids for more info.

So far all my Martagon lilies are up. Here's hoping for no more heavy frosts. We've had great weather this past week, 26 yesterday and 25 today. We're supposed to get rain the next few days, which is much needed.

The North American Lily Society Show and Convention 2007 will be held in Edmonton, and I will be responsible for maintenance of the web site. Not much to do yet, but I'm really excited about this show.

The Lily Gallery website is currently undergoing a facelift and some streamlining. We will be integrating the member list with the general Danen.Org member list. I expect the odd glitch, but in the long run, when a person signs up on one site, he or she is automatically registered on the others. One of the other new features that I'm excited about is the ability to change the "style" on the site. We currently support a brown, a green, and a blue style. For now we will concentrate on making sure all pages are consistent, before considering other colours.
Check it out. Even non-members can change colours by clicking on the coloured dots at the bottom of the page.

The lily seeds I planted on November 17th started coming up yesterday. So far 3 out of 17 pots have seedlings.

Planted my lily seeds today. 17 different crosses, some open-pollinated. Should be interesting in 2007. I really enjoyed my 2003 crosses this year. See seedling page for pictures.

I have been working on a new web site for our local lily society for over two months. It started as a fun project in August. Since then, my creative efforts have been suppressed to the point where I am asking myself if the effort is worth it. We'll see, I guess...

I have been putting my lily information in a database, which can now drive my lily web pages. See www.lily-gallery.com/h/div1.php for the first database-driven web page. Enjoy!

One of my "Yelloween" blooms did not open as expected. Yet, when I put it in a vase, it just lit up the house with a wonderful perfume. While chemo patients are overly sensitive to smells, I personally enjoy Yelloween's perfume.

Over the past two weeks we've had more than usual amounts of rain, with showers almost every night. As a result, slugs have multiplied like crazy and have attacked my lilies en masse. I now have beer traps and an ammonia spray bottle to wage war on the slimy beasts.
With the daily rains combined with fairly warm weather, most of my Asiatic lilies are about finished blooming. I am getting some polling from Saskatchewan, Denmark and Latvia, but I may have to freeze that for next years hybridizing program.
So far six seedlings from my 2003 hybridizing program (when I did not keep track of what I did) have bloomed, with another one on the way. I can recognize parent plants in some, but not all. It's a nice feeling to see a new lily on bloom for the very first time. My seedling page will have photos.
Last night we had a severe thunderstorm warning with golfball size hail, but that warning was lifted about 10pm. Right now, it's 28C, no wind, muggy, so I expect more nasty stuff today. Until then, I'm outside with the laptop, flicking the odd mosquito and wasp away.

I was asked how my lily seeds/seedlings were doing. Here is a photo of some of the early germinations. I did not do any candling, but instead used the "broadcast method" suggested by Walter Britton.

Ellerslie Gift and Garden Centre hosted an ARLS bulb sale. What a zoo to get in there. Very limited parking. Got some bulbs from my friend Marilyn, and bought two more white ones for myself, and a pink martagon for Darm in Hay River.

It's supposed to be 20°C today, but at noon we're only at 7°C...

Better start working on my lily web sites.

Started moving some lilies around to the new bed. The martagon bulbs are huge...

I was so tired, that I went to bed at 8:30pm. Tired, but happy that I made some good progress.

Went to plant lilies at a friend's. Good grief, was I stiff later at night. And I did not even do that much...

Hope you enjoy them next year, Irene. 

Slept about 14 hours. Feeling much better than yesterday. Today I noticed some of the cherries that I ate from yesterday, had fungus on them. Cecile figures you can just rinse them off, but my take on it is that fungus grows from the inside out.

Used the weed-whacker to cut down some grass. Unfortunately I cut down some lilies too. One of them, OT Sonora, is still in bloom so it's in a vase inside now and smells heavenly.

Spent the afternoon visiting Parkland Perennials with three lovely ladies: Janet, Jodi, and Marilyn. I'm glad we went today. Tomorrow and Sunday is the official open house, but the temperatures are forecasted to be over 30°C.

After supper, I braved the wildlife outside (mosquitoes) and did some lily hybridizing. The garden looks real nice with all those lilies blooming, and now is the time to see if I can come up with something special.

Finished planting Yelloween, Iceberg, and Citronella this morning before the sun got out. Hot day, 31°C...

Too pooped to do much else.

Started to dig up that dead rose, but that thing has tough roots. I may need some dynamite...

I'm feeling much better, although the heat does not help my energy levels.

Got a PowerPoint slideshow with pictures of last Sunday's hail storm... Thanks, Deb.

Visited a few people at Northlands as I was picking up some gate passes. Man, is my office a mess. Just kidding, Ed... No worse than when I was living there.

This evening I finally managed to get that rose root out. Used a saw, which was a lot less work than trying to chop it out with the spade. Cleared the soil, put in some compost and planted the Ruffled Apricot daylily. Enough for today.

Another nice looking day, although a bit more cloudy, but that's OK. Had some more rain last night and today more lilies are open.

Went back to Salisbury to buy those two lilies, plus Citronella and a daylily called Ruffled Apricot. Now I have to hack out that dead rose so I can plant these guys...

Cooling off fast today, and expecting snow tonight. Brrr...

Checked online about my laptop order, but could not locate it, so called Dell. Turns out CIBC VISA would not release payment because they still had my old telephone number. Now why could nobody be bothered to call me or email me to fix this? Sheesh, so much for April 15th delivery... Very disappointed in that (lack of) customer service.

Another picture of a martagon seedling. This one is laying on top of the soil ... is that good?

Last year today, is when the first martagon lily came above ground. Considering I took the straw and leaves off later this year, we're still in good shape, I think.

Happy Easter! Was watching Robert Schuller's Easter service and he quoted Albert Einstein, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." I'll leave it to the reader to ponder that quote...

Some martagon lily seedlings are coming up. :-)

Seedlings are getting bigger... :)

I think I see a lily seedling popping up in my tray.

Planted what I think are viable lily seeds. Now we'll have to wait and see. They're mostly Asiatics, and also a yellow tiger, and what might be an LA hybrid.