Lillies from WoodenShoe

I know I said I was not going to get any more lilies this spring but I have been bad and I lied. I just can not stay away from tempation. I just ordered 25 RED ALERT and 25 BLACK OUT. I got the 14-16 cm size for Black Out, which was the largest they offered, and the 16-18 cm upgrade size for RED ALERT.

I bought 3 RED ALERT bulbs from B&D lilies and those are planted in my front yard but I really flipped for this lily. I just love red asiatics. So I decided to get the 25 for a row by my driveway. And since I like red asiatics so much, got the 25 BLACK OUT for a row in the garden by the garage.

GO RITA!!!!!!! BEV

Never say never...it just gets you into trouble. It's sort of like being on a diet, the minute you decide you're on one, you are hungry for an ice cream sundae. Lol.

And Rita, with many Asiatics having the high bud counts that they do, imagine what it'll look like in two or three years as te bulbs get larger! Bigger, more floriferous lilies! :-)

Asiatics are just the best - they gow almost everywhere in the US, perennialize and multiply like crazy, faster than daffodils - even Chocolatemosse leaves hers in the ground in interior Alaska over the winter! I wonder why they're not as popular as daffodils or even moreso.

I have bunches of yellow "London" and "Pisa" lilies as well as LA "Dazzle" and "Algarve" - what a show they can put on when planted en masse.

Oh Rita, I can not wait to see pictures of all your lovely lilies in bloom this year!! You go girl!!! :)

I have the lily crazies really bad this year. Lily crazies started last year but since the daylily beds that many of these lilies are also going into were only planted with the daylilies last spring, I had to wait for the add lilies part of my plan.

This year there is a bed section in my front yard were I plan on alternating lilies and daylilies but didn't wait. Its much harder to plant the lilies if the daylies aren't there yet. Its a real pain mapping out the spacing and trying to get everything just right.

Asiatics are my favorite lilies. I have had asiatics for many many years. I started with a cheapo collection of "hardy lilies" from Henry Fields and later learned that those were asiatics. I bought another solid color collection from White Flower Farm many years ago and then started buying them in the displays at local nurseries. Eventually I started buying orientals also, but for years just stuck to the asiatics. I honestly didn't even know there were such things as orienpets for a very long time. I did know about trumpet lillies and remember that they smell divine.

There are so many lilies coming up in the rose beds this year, more than ever before. I don't know were they all came from, although I have been planting them. But they were never that many there last two years.

Rita, you've got it bad! Might as well give up and buy another lot, because very soon you're going to be needing more room. I have the same problem with lilies, daylilies and also Iris. I'm to the point where I'll dig up and get rid of other plants just to find more room for those 3. Roses I like, but can do without. People will be lining up to take photos of your place later this summer.

susan

I wish I had more room. I can't tell you how much is planted here on one average size suburban lot. What saves me in so far as getting as much here as there is, is that my lot is multilevel. No way could I have gotten it all here if it was one level. But it also caused some challenges which is why I have a lot of terraced garden beds.

Then I get the crazies to plant more and more things and somehow, I do find room for them all.

I actually had a 25 lot of Oriental TIME OUT lilies in my cart with Wooden Shoe but finially decided just to get the Asiatics I did get.

And that last statement about deciding to get only what I had in my cart at WoodenShoe did not last long. I ordered 20 Asiatic Lilies Centerfold, which is white with a starburst pattern of black squiggles in the center and 15 Asiatic TINOS which is white with a center of hot red and yellow starburst, very pretty from VB Wholesale just afew minutes ago..

I got these because I could not resist the Tinos since I was ordering anyway, and I got the CENTERFOLD because I wanted a mostly white asiatic to put a row of them in back of the red blackouts. I passed on the oriental TIME OUTS because I figgured they might not bloom both at once and bought the CENTERFOLDS instead to get a row of BLACK OUT planted with a row of CENTERFOLD. I wanted them to bloom together because red and white look stunning together.

You'll love Centerfold, it's stunning! And it will be gorgeous with Black Out! Sometimes it takes a couple of years to really start seeing the increase in your Lilies, sounds like that's what you're seeing now- how exciting! I have an Aurelian hybrid, Golden Sunburst, that I only bought 1 bulb of 4 years ago. The first 2 years it only produced a single stem, only with more blooms the 2nd year, but last year 4 stalks emerged, and this year its a clump of 6 stalks :-)

I have a Golden Sceptre this spring from The Lily Garden but not familiar with Golden Sunburst. Were did you get it?

On my trumpets and trumpet hybrids, I bought 3 bulbs each so to get an instant clump right away. Wanted it to look good. There is a section near my fence at the driveway side yard garden were I intend to get bulbs this fall and put in between my daylilies. Planning on buying from Buggy this fall, one bulb for each of those particular spots.

I have been buying and planting packages of lilies locally for years and mostly planting them amoung the roses in my rose garden and yes, those are comming up like crazy this spring, more than ever before and something that was something I really noticed.

I stumbled upon the fact that red lilies look stunning planted against white last year by accident when I had planted small blocks of solid color asiatics by color and just by chance had the red ones planted next to the white ones. I thought the effect was so dramatic that I knew I wanted to do that again, thus the planned BLACK OUT - CENTERFOLD combo. And I really liked the picture of CENTERFOLD in the VB Wholesale catalog.

I got a notice this morning that my lilies from WoodenShoe had shipped today. I like the fact that they ship right away, not like VB, were its anyones guess when they will ship.

Whats with this precooled thing at WoodenShoe? Aren't all lily bulbs kept in the cooler overwinter?

The Fed Ex Guy just brought the WoodenShoe order. That was fast!! Anyway there are nice sized plastic bags with lily bulbs mass packed in damp moss. I unpacked the RED ALERTS already and I see what they mean by pre cooled. Those things are COLD. Very cold to the touch. I have never received bulbs like that before. Nice bulbs.

It said on the website to plant them as soon as receiving so I am heading back outside. Am going to do the row of RED ALTERTs now.

Rita, they sound beautiful. Asiatics bloom earlier than the orientals. When you've got them both, you've got lotsa blooms.

Once you get them in, watch out for the red beetle. If you're on the North Shore, you're just across LI Sound from me, and they have already started in on my orientals.

I am on the north shore. We have never had Lily Beetles here, I hope they never come. I do know the Asiatic bloom earlier than the orientals and I have both but I just love my asiatics.

I wanted to add that WoodenShoe had CENTERFOLD listed but it was sold out for the season so I was stuck having to buy it from VB Wholesale.

I planted my RED ALERTs and now going back out to plant my BLACK OUTs. The BLACK OUTS are going in a garden bed by my garage. That bed has trellis with honeysuckle vines (I love vining honeysuckle) up against the garage wall. In front of that is a row of Sedums and in front of that a row of daylilies. The lilies are going between the daylilies and sedums. There is plenty of room for me to get the BLACK OUTS in today and then I will have to move the Sedum plants back somewhat to fit in the row of CENTERFOLD that I intend to put there in back of the BLACK OUTs. Always more work to do to the the garden looking like I want it to look like :-((

I got Golden Sunburst from an ebay seller who's id is luckybusya.

Ok, thanks. I never buy plants off e-bay. I actually never buy anything off e-bay.

gemini--I've bought several plants from luckybusya. I've always been happy with the transactions.

She offers a few I don't see offered from other vendors, but its been a few years since I've gotten anything from her. I noticed some of her pics where the same ones The Lily Garden uses, which didn't set well with me.

I'm not a fan of Asiatics. I guess its because most of what I see are orange and red and upfacing. None of those features do I like. Recently I've been seeing some that are in pastels and a couple that are outfacing so maybe I'll try them in my new garden. I wonder why they breed so many upfacing lilies now?

Yehudith

Probably because they work well for florists. And it's easier to appreciate a flower that looks back at you without having to bend over.

But there's plenty of other asiatics with other qualities that you mentioned

I think Moby's right about the breeding for upfacing Asiatics, both for florist use and the desire for short plants that show off their blooms. But I find those with pendulous blooms, especially those with recurved petals, to be the most charming and graceful. For some reason it seems the pendulous and outfacing types have been "out of style" so to speak, for the last several years, but The Lily Garden has a lovely selection of them. The Dr. North hybrids are particularly beautiful, and some are even described as fragrant. And Asiatics do have the widest color range of the Lily classes, lots of pinks and pastels as well as all the hot colors.

Gemini

That's what I'm learning since I started here. I just really love the "girly" type flowers.
The other's are just too "stiff and hard" for me even in the pastel colours and to my eyes they are "artificial" looking. But then, I don't like modern architecture for the same reason.

I never cared much for asiatic lilies until I met some folks here at DG that persuaded me otherwise. Over the last few years I have come to love recurved and some smashing colors. Part of the problem is they have no fragrance, and that is something I really miss in them. But as for flower forms and color, there is just nothing quite like a nice asiatic lily.

Here is 'Chippendale'

Or how about 'Plum Crazy'?

Another ..... just to show you some different forms.

I can definitly get behind those Magnolia. That's what I mean. I learn and see so much here. You go to the nursery or the local stores and all you see are red, yellow and orange upfacing so you think that's all there is. You come here and now I'm trying to figure out how to slide money off the food budget to add in some asiatics. Man I just love Daves. How my husband hates it.

Ya know, the big box stores do serve a purpose. They lure you in with cheap bulbs and you buy everyone they have, but then the next year, all they have are the same things and by then you've seen that the ones you bought from them the year before may not necessarily be who they said they are. So, to fuel your new want you start seeking out other sources and before long you have left the big box stores in the dust. But, they were the ones that originally got ya hooked and I'm glad they did. :) LOL

Yehudith, I totally get what you mean. I've become very fond of the species of so many plants (like Tulips)- I find them more graceful, and lack the stiffness of so many hybrids. I also find modern architecture less pleasing to the eye.

Speaking of those that nurseries and garden centers carry as potted plants, I think upfacing Asiatics are most used for that kind of marketing because they're shorter and the upfacing buds don't break off during shipment.

Rita, earlier you mentioned the pre cooled bulbs from Wooden Shoe/Ednie, and true, lilies are harvested in fall and kept in cold storage through winter before shipment. Ednie/Wooden Shoe caters to a lot of cut flower growers, and offer Lily bulbs through the year. They make a point that they're precooled to let growers know they're guaranteed blooms in one grow cycle.

The WoodenShoe bulbs were certainly really cold when I received them, not like others I have gotten. Plus there was absolutely no signs of sprouts so it was really obvious that those bulbs were asleep. My last order from VB Wholesale was very heavily sprounted, at least amoung the dwarf orientals in the shipment. The trumpets were normal looking like I am used to receiving them. No matter, they are planted now.

I am surprised that anyone that loves lilies would not love asiatics. As I have said before, they are my favorite lilies. Nowadays they come in so many more colors than the bright solid colors that they must have started off with, but I have plenty of those also.

OK guys, wheoun my husband throws a fit I'm going to blame it all on yo u! I just placed a big order for Asiatics with the Lily Garden. You know I just skipped over the catagory automatically because of my predjudice. I never even bothered to look. Well I looked. I shouldn't have looked. He's going to take away my card for sure now. Thank G-d I can plant them in pots so I can move them with us.

Yehudith

LOL I certainly don't 'love' asiatics, to me they're kind of like daylilies ~ they're filler. And I'm not especially fond of hot colors. My real love is orientals but that would make for narrow color palette and an awfully short bloom season in the garden.

I didn't use to care for the pendulous asiatics but now I adore their delicacy and jewel tones.

to add ~ go ahead and blame us all you want Yuhudith, we don't mind!



This message was edited Apr 30, 2009 3:52 PM

Moby- I can't believe you call daylilies filler. I have about 400 daylilies by now and you can get so many flower forms, frills or not, and patterns and colors. No blue though. Well, to each his own.

I happen to think lilies look great planted amoung the daylilies. I do prefer the asiatics for that because they bloom before peak daylily season around here and it just makes for more color in the garden bed.

Yehudith- Good for you, branching out to include fancy asiatics in your garden :-))

Do tell us what you got yehudith? I'm dying to know what caught your eye....

I ordered:

Ariadnne
Euridice
Eros
Rosepoint
Sweet surender
White butterflies
doeskin
peach butterflies
Tiger babies
King David
Last Dance
Caress

I told you, he's going to kill me!! I'm making him a big pot of lamb stew right now to soften him up.

They will be lovely.....you have fine taste and you can tell him I said so ^_^

I'll take the minority stance - I think Asiatics are beautiful in their own right and they have lots of wonderful qualities. Like bright, showy color for a good price, and fantasic perennialization and amazing multiplication. There are multiple forms here as many of you have mentioned but I certainly don't scoff at the stiff, upfacing Asiatics :-) I like the pendulous ones too as well as the outfacing ones. I don't mind the pastels but some of the melon tones tend to fade a lot in our sun (any flower, not just lilies), so I often choose the bolder colors. They are terrific! ^_^

I like the vibrant in your face smashing colors on the asiatics myself too. For years and years thats all I had, the common solid color screaming yellow and orange asiatics. I still have them and I still love them.

Hey, I haven't met a lily yet that I didn't like.. So, which ever one is blooming a the time I see it is the one I love the most! :^)

THEY'RE HERE!!!!!!!! Can you believe the Lily Garden bulbs are here already?! The mailman dropped them off just as I was walking out the door. There was a mixup on one of the bulbs, but nothing I'd have a fit about. The bonus bulbots are to die for. Karen North and Sheherazade. Can't wait to get them in the pots but for now they're going in the fridge. Why did she have to send me a catalogue!

That was fast! Nice bonus bulbs too. Give Sheherazade plenty of room. Mine grew into a giant in no time at all.

susan