BUDS ON MY ASIATIC LILIES?

My Asiatic lilies have developed pods where the petals have fallen off. Are there seeds in there? If so, when do I harvest, do I chill, when do I plant outside. ? I think that's enough questions for now!

I waited until mine were good and dry and then I harvested them. As for when to plant maybe someone will answer that for us.

Ah, This is one I can answer! The pods are full of SOMETHING, but that something may, or may not, be viable seeds.

As soon as you can see a crack in the pod, bring it in and lay it down on a piece of newspaper where it can finish opening by itself.

Inside each pod are 3 chambers with "seeds" in layers like pennies in a roll of wrapped pennies. These are there whether they have been pollinated or not, so you have to pull the heavy viable seeds, the ones with embryos, from the chaffy ones.

To do this, you can candle them by putting them on a light table, or use the poor man's method with a piece of glass and hold a light underneath it (usually the glass is on your lap and the lamp is on the floor between your knees.) Not too many people have this set up handy, so you can also winnow them.

To winnow: Put them in smallish quanties in a shallow bowl or a plate with deep sides and winnow them by gently blowing across the bowl. You can also go out on a somewhat windy day and pour the seeds from one bowl to another over and over, like you might so with dahlia seeds. The papery ones are light and will be blown away by the wind and the heavy, viable ones will fall to the bowl.

If you hand pollinate your lilies, you could get 100 seeds from each pod, but if you didn't, you will probably only get 5-15 or so.

ALL of the lily seeds in the swaps & round robins I have seen have been 100% chaff. There is a heavy, visible embryo in a lily seed. Here is a bad picture of it. http://members.shaw.ca/lilynet/netlil/id51.htm

And here is how to grow them from seed (the most important step is identifying what kind of lily the seed came from)http://www.lilies.org/growingfromseed.html

Suzy

Hi Illoquin, does your above post apply to Oriental lilies as well, by any chance? I've got pods on my Oriental 'x-otica' but I don't have high hopes for viable seeds...

Yes, and in fact you are less likely to get viable seeds on Orientals than Asiatics. That having been said, both of them are SUPER EASY to pollinate with pollen to get lots and lots and lots of viable seeds. Really, you should try it ("you" being anybody reading this :)

"Put the Pa on the Ma." Pollen from the Anther = Pa, and Sticky Stigma = Ma

Asiatics usually bloom the second year, just like any perennial, and then the third year they are magnificent. Orientals are a year behind that. (They talke a year longer in both respects.)

Martagons are another kettle of fish...take a long time.

Suzy