Lilies are on parade. Easter lilies might be scarce this year owing to offer, labor, and lingering virus difficulties, but there are a good deal of other gorgeous, vibrant lilies from which to pick out. If a person of these beauties has not nevertheless made it into the backyard garden, now is a perfect time to choose the one that finest suits your garden’s persona.
The lily in the accompanying photograph is a hybrid Oriental lily, Lilium speciosum native to Japan and Taiwan. It is just just one of the approximated 200 Lilium species in the Liliaceae loved ones (liliumspeciesfoundation.org). Lilies easily hybridize with other lilies and L. speciosum is used extensively for hybridizing with other Orientals.
Some lily enthusiasts discover breeding new hybrids to be a interesting, satisfying activity. Breeders create new hybrids by 1st picking a male pollen donor parent and a female seed mother or father.
Steps in hybridization are uncomplicated:
• In just about every lily flower are six anthers borne on tops of male stamens. Detach experienced anthers from stamens, dry on waxed paper. Acquire dry pollen and use quickly or shop in a included jar in fridge or freezer pollen will keep viable for up to a year.
• Choose an unopened flower bud from the seed mum or dad gently peel back petals take out anthers to reduce self-pollination. Deal with the tip of a compact camel-hair artist’s brush with pollen and brush carefully more than the receptive stigma. The stigma is at the suggestion of the long, often white or mild eco-friendly, woman model in the middle of the six stamens. Stigmas are receptive when glisteny and sticky. Pollinate the stigma by brushing it with pollen and go over to prevent contamination from international pollen. Deal with and keep covered until fashion dries.
• Label the cross with pollen and seed mother and father. If pollination and fertilization were prosperous, a pod commences to swell, indicating seed progress is taking place. Permit pods to experienced on the plant when tops die back again and convert brown, acquire, and dry in a cool, dim, properly-ventilated location. Seed will slide out. Refrigerate seed until eventually planting time in the fall.
Breeding lily hybrids is not for absolutely everyone. Quite a few gardeners acquire satisfaction by simply observing them emerge each and every spring and unfolding their sophisticated bouquets.
Bouquets of Lilium speciosum are strongly aromatic and exquisite in kind. Petals and sepals of lilies are indistinguishable and are referred to as tepals (TEA-pels). The tepals are curved, white and dim pink with hundreds of purple elevated protuberances called papillae.
Papillae are the most attention-grabbing buildings but are effortlessly unnoticed except one particular appears intently at the area of a tepal. A papilla is a bump, but with a impressive perform as it secretes protein-prosperous lipid metabolites that appeals to bugs.
When bloom time of Lilium speciosum has passed, location into the backyard garden and you will be rewarded with exquisite blooms for quite a few several years.
Ellen Peffley taught horticulture at the college stage for 28 a long time, 25 of those people at Texas Tech, all through which time she produced two onion types. She is now the sole proprietor of From the Backyard garden, a sector garden farmette. You can e mail her at gardens@suddenlink.web
