Lily Scaling

A week, maybe 10 days even, ago I planted some Lily bulbs (nice large plump ones, that came from H W Hyde and Sons).

I decided to have a go at propagating them by removing just one or two scales from each bulb. The idea is that you put them in some barely damp Vermiculite and leave them in a zip-lock bag for a few weeks, and they produce little bulbils. So I striped a few scales off, put them back in the plastic bag that the bulb had come out of - which was now torn where I had ripped it to get the bulbs out! - and chucked the bone-dry soil that had fallen off the bulbs in. I put the whole lot under my desk and went out to plant the bulbs ...

... completely forgot about my plan to put them in Zip-lock bags with damp vermiculite until this evening :( Expecting to see some shrivelled up bulb scales I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of them have already made bulbils - how about that?!! Some of them even have roots!

I've put them in zip-lock bags, with moist vermiculite, anyway and will take a look at them in few weeks time.




I also sowed some Lily regale seeds (from a single flower that I missed dead-heading last Summer and it went to seed). A veritable little forest of seedlings now:

 

Sometimes gardening is to easy!

 

Its nice when you win some, that's for sure!

The Hollies, planted a couple of days ago, have all been badly rocked by the wind. Hoping that staking them will be enough to cheer them up, and they won't have taken the hump :(

Other bit of good news: I've pretty much finished potting up the cell grown hollies I bought for the maze. I bought 250, but they are from-seed so some cells tend to have a couple of plants ... some even had 4! I'm not sure what the forestry folk do when they plant them out, as I suspect that 2-in-1 (let alone 4-in-1!!) doesn't make a good final-plant. Maybe they just cut the extras off?

Anyways, my 250 cells looks to have netted me just over 420 plants although the ones I have divided up will be knocked back a fair bit by having their roots seriously disturbed.

 

The youngsters are looking good Kristen. They look quite prickly, or are they soft edged. Not easy to handle either way I shouldn't think.

 

Not as prickly as they look, I think that's only because they (or maybe the leaves) are young. I didn't have a problem potting them on with bare hands. But I did immediately pick up every lose leaf that dropped off, as I suspected that if they got buried in the potting mix I might come across them with rather a surprise!

Definitely not a good plant to have as a hedge behind a border though, the fallen leaves, once nicely dried, are deadly to come across when weeding.

 

great job kristen , as usual

just a curiosity , so many time we see new variety of lily down the florist but we can`t find the bulb , well lily can actually be propagated even by leaves.



I want to experiment few few this summer ....

 

Scaling works for Frits too Kristen

sal73 - here are my Eucomis bicolor babies done by leaf cutting in October 2011...............


From three sections made from just one leaf there are now a total of ten in here. Grit, perlite and multi-purpose compost in equal measures, washed through with boiling water.

 

LongK , that is what I`m talking about , as soon as the weather get better , I would like to get some flowers from the florist and see how many plants I can get out of flowers .....

and bad lie to my miss that finally got some flowers for her ?

 

Tooooo sly Sal, too sly!!!!!!

Remember - pick them for the best leaves, not flowers.

 

, I know I sound sly , but do you really expect me to come back with a bunch of flower and start to make cutting to germinate?????????????

If I come back home with flower , she will ask me what have I done wrong

 

I thought that you Italians were the romantic type!!!

 

Of course , do you want to put the difference of climbing a wall to still a flower for her from a balcony , driving around ,stop the car in the middle of nowhere and pick a flower for her while she is asking if everything was ok , or
come back home with a reduced bunch of flower , bough in the market

romance in not fresh water

 

The scales I chucked in zip-lock bags with a bit of damp vermiculite, 6 weeks ago, are still there and now itching to be potted on :(

Kinda shows how easy it is though, given that I abandoned them dry in a box for 7-10 days before putting them in bags ... and have given them no TLC since ...

 

Brilliant result!

 

Blimey, once you plant that lot out your garden is going to be a "no go area", I hate holly for the "dead leaf" reason, they never seem to rot.