Re: LILIES: Oriental

 I have found disease to only be a problem where lilies have grown before if
 the lilies in that same spot previously where diseases.  Could you expland
 further on what you mean by 'different biological makeup' please?>>>>>

Jennifer, there is the famed rose disease which alleges that a rose planted
in the place of a failed rose, will also fail.  When dealing with Oriental
lilies, I would follow that advice.  I am winging it here but note that you
are in zone 3 so may have less of this failed plant carryover.  In the case
of the rose disease, it is usually not named but is often described in rose
literature.  Biology later.

<<<<You receive them at peak
 size for a splendid display of bloom. The following year the bulb divides
 into many small bulbs and may take some years to attain that large blooming
 size again.>>>>

For me they never attain the original size.  Many sprouts appear and hang
around for years if you let them.  I will defer to Paul Henjum here and he
will probably be able to give a beter explanation.  Oriental lilies have come
down in cost so one can treat them as annuals if you really want some.

<<<< This is interesting.  You mean that the bulb actually splits and
produces actual
 perfect little bulbsor the bulb seems to crumble or come apart>  Do these
 smaller
 bulbs produce foliage and not bloom, or do they grow and produce bloom?>>>>

I do not know this answer, again perhaps Paul Henjum or Jim Shields will come
one with a better explanation.  If you dig up an Oriental a year or two down
the road there will be a cluster of small bulbs producing no blooms.


 <<<<One advice given is to plant in the fall and plant very deeply.  I seem
to
 remember this information from a lecture on lilies that I attended. >>>>

This standard advice.  Also in a pherhaps deluded way, I thing it might stop
the mice and voles from eating the bulbs.  We lose more lily bulbs to total
disappearance which is the work of voles and mice.  I do not plant outdoors
any bulbs that are choice or expensive.  Eventually all disappear to rodents.

<<<<>>>

Since the shipping is always very early in the spring and what you are
getting is stored over winter bulbs it seems to me fall planting is better.
I have never observed any effect from cold on the bulbs most commonly sold in
catalogs.

<<< I have 2 Black Beauty in my garden.  One is a diploid and the other is a
 tetraploid.
 They look identical except that the tetraploid has much more substance to
 bloom petals
 and the blooms are a little larger but not that much and the stem is much
 stronger.
 The Register says that it has L.henryi in it which is why I am sure that it
 is much
 more resistant to disease then other Oriental hybrids and the L. speciosum
 gives it
 the beauty.
 However from my experience unless the dealer tells you it is a Tet. or a Dip.
 it is not possible to tell the different between the two bulbs just by
 looking at the bulb.>>>>>

I did not know there were tets and dips with Black Beauty.  I have had this
lily for years keeping it alive by moving it ahead of the rodents and keeping
it four or five places.  Black Beauty does multiply and produce more blossoms
each year.  The reason for the cheaper supply is Dutch production.

 <<<<Parentage:
           (L. speciosum var. rubrum x L. henryi)
     Hybridizer:
           R:&N: L.Woodriff, c.1957. Woodriff cat. 1958.
     Description:
           Very dark red, centre green, margins white; fls L. speciosum type.
 Stems 1.2-1.9m.
           July. AM 1972>>>>

I do not have lily registration info, just a ton of books.  If it has L.
henryi, I can see the toughness of the plant.  I have a clump lf L. henryi
planted in a wire basket.  That is really to much work to keep lilies.

<<<please tell us about your Lily Garden>>>

I don't have a  lily garden.  I have an old farm which came complete with
tiger lilies growing everywhere.  That being the case, there is no soil that
could be virus free.  Some of these tigers are small and puny and others are
huge and beautiful.  Sun seems to be a factor.  I pull out and destroy the
smaller ones.  If you plant new lilies in perfect drainage areas you have a
much better chance for survival and increase.  We have rocky, stoney, gravel
filled soil from a mountainous area.   Lilies actually like this soil and
would grow well here if not virus attacked or eaten by voles.

BTW, you can tell virus infection by the early loss of lower leaves and
streaking of the upper leaves with yellow.

If Paul Henjum would write on Orientals and splitting of the bulbs,  I am
sure it would be more illuminating.  I think they are sent to you at their
best blooming size and thereafter nature does it's thing.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4 (where there is still much snow and freezing nights)

 Best Regards
 Jennifer Bishop
 Zone 3
 Winnipeg, MB CA >>
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