Asiatic Question...

This is my first year collecting seeds fron ANY of my plants. I was wondering about the asiatic lily seeds. The pods left after the bloom falls off have hundreds of tiny little seed-looking things. Also, there are black things that look like seeds on the foliage nestled between the leaf and stalk. Which of these are the true seeds, or are they BOTH considered seeds? Can anyone help me out here? Thanks!!

The contents of the pods will be your seeds, they will not be identical copies of your plant, even though they may or may not look like the parent. The bulbils are what are in the leaf axils and they are identical copies of the parent plant. Both methods will probably take 2 years to get blooming size plants.

Shaz - Both can be propagated. The bulbils are the black seed-like things where the foliage attaches to the stems. These can be planted/scattered to get new plants. I believe these come true to the parent. It can take 2-3 years to get a flowering plant.

Seeds also can be grown out. Here is a good link on seed starting of lilies. It should be noted that seeds will produce variation if cross-pollinated with another lily cultivar. Some cultivars are sterile as well. Most importantly know that if you let your lilies go to seed the plant expends a lot of energy setting seeds which takes away from energy stored in the bulb for the next bloom cycle. You may see reduced blooming the and slower increase in new bulbs/bulbettes.

http://www.wrls.org/culture/growing-from-seed.html

Another way to propagate lilies is through bulb scale propagation. Here is an excellent link. I've accidently hit a lily bulb while digging and taken sliced off scales and replanted them and gotten them to grow that way. I think this is a pretty easy method.

http://www.midatlanticlily.org/MLS_online2/3education/3topics/3topic_scaling.html

Well, thank you , guys! Langbr, thanks sooo much for the site links. I can be patient for new plants, especially since a lot of you wonderful people are helping me to increase my lily collection with all these co-ops!

I'll go bookmark these sites right now!