Lots of my favorite lilies are not from the big guys that breed lilies many mainly for cut flower industry. While cut flowers are gorgeous in their own right, so are creations by people with a passion for the garden lily. Some hybridizers are more well known, some lesser known, but all should be celebrated. Whether they are still with us or have passed on; they left footprints, so to speak, in our gardens that I am grateful for.

I'll start with a couple by the late Bill Cramer.
'Stately Red'

Another is 'Acutie'

Fred Fellner from Canada is another man who has done some amazing work and has really added some pizazz to my gardens.
'Fred's Red'



'FF88 Select'

I think I need to make room in my garden for more Canadian lilies!

I feel like it is never wrong to go Canadian with lilies!

Absolutely beautiful!!!!!!

One of my favorite hybridizes who has passed away is Marion Hagerstrom. He was a very sweet person and gave us many wonderful lilies and daylilies.

Dr. Chris North created some extremely special lilies in his time. I think it is very cool he named them after special people in his life.
'Peggy North'

'Eileen North'

I love the north hybrids. Ever get anything with these in breeding?

I have a few seedlings that came from a pod(s) on Karen North. They are in my pot ghetto.... somewhere, and a year or two out from flowering. Can't really explain it coming from a triploid. Pods were filled similar to that of Black Beauty, where they were nice and plump, but filled with chaff and almost no seeds even looked possibly viable.

Triploids are interesting. Flowered a seedling last year from Hornback's Gold and my daughter has two seedlings up this year from Fire King - both triploids. If just one out of a pod of 100+ possible seeds is viable, or one seed out of ten pods, it's worth it. Plus it's a way to satisfy that pollen-dabbing impulse and plump pod fetish without ending up with thousands of seedlings to tend!

Tracey, love that FF88 and Stately Red has stately pedicels. Nice.

Here in Tasmania our best known hybridist was probably Joe Hoell. He achieved so much pioneer work with interdivisionals. I'll try to find some good representative photos.

Please add pictures from your favorites! It is meant to be a thread to celebrate favorites.

I have gotten a few viable seeds from the North Hybrids. Somehow each time, something happens along the way to kill it though. It is one of those things I will continue to strive for until I succeed. Offspring with those genes in there can't go wrong.

Those were great flowers Tracey. It's fun to have something from people that you know.

Well, here's the Joe Hoell lily I gained first-hand experience of last summer; Tall Boy (I posted this months ago, but here again for an encore!):



Tall Boy's parentage is L. henryi x 'Valley Sundust', making it a first generation interdivisional, like the famous Black Beauty. I was so impressed with it this year that it's become one of my favourites - flaws and all! It's a lily to excite other hybridists and I love it for the possibilities and challenges it offers. This lily is a ticket to fly!

I will not claim to have met or to know any of these hybridizers. Simply I celebrate their work in my gardens. Lilies have come by way of friends, small farm lily growers and Regional Lily Societies and their sales.

I should also mention another favorite hybridizer of mine @buggycrazy/ Lisa Hunt and a couple of her lily beauties.
'Pink Cream' has been in my top ten since it arrived here!

'Zeus'

Pink Cream looks lovely! If you ever have any pollen to spare....

McRae did a lot of work with lilies did he do any crosses himself that you know of??

I have trumpet lilies on my garden that came from his fields. He did hybridizing for himself and a Lily company in Oregon, as I understand it, Some of it he references in his book .

I knew Ed, or Eddie as he was known locally, casually through the Pacific Northwest Lily Society. He was very generous with his seeds and I am now growing a few of his Golden Temple strain of trumpets. I doubt that it still exists except maybe in someones stash of frozen seeds (I still have a few seeds left). He bred many lilies including most of the Pixie dwarf Asiatic series.

He worked for OBF as Jan de Graff's lily breeder, quit soon after that shyster, George R. Heublein took it over. He saw what was coming.


http://www.oregonbusiness.com/...

http://community.seattletimes....

Another Tasmanian hybridiser whose work I admire is Neil Jordan. He has specialised in small pendant asiatics, which I love. But something that really impressed me this year with its beauty is his oriental lily Cam Alpha. Thank goodness for breeders that don't focus on cut flowers!