Anthony, I am sorry to hear about your health, but am happy to know you have some answers now. Take time to take care of yourself. Sow seeds as you feel up to it. It will be lily season again before you know it.

My candidum clone from Istria started to open yesterday and today I cross-pollinate a lot of flowers. for seed pods!

Congrats Luka, good luck with your pollinations!

The forum has been a little quiet of late, so here are some pictures from yesterday. I was cutting down / pulling stalks from this year's "Fusion" when this offset - with its own offset - got pulled up too. The bulb is very similar to L. pardalinum, one of Fusion's parents.

The second photo shows one of my L. speciosum var. gloriosoides (Taiwan form) seedlings emerging. (And I'm in the northern hemisphere!) With me these have a very short dormancy - just 3 to 4 months during the summer - and start into growth in the autumn, grow through the winter, and then flower in late-spring/early-summer. This is why I have to keep them in the greenhouse over the winter. I wonder whether this growth is a consequence of the Taiwanese subtropical & monsoon climate. It is common for the spring and autumn to be sunnier than the summer months becuse of the summer monsoon and heavier rains. Winters are cooler (but not cold) and also generally sunnier than summer. This could promote a growing cycle where much of the active growth happens in the autumn through spring (in frost-free conditions) with the summer months being when the pods ripen. I intend to move all my gloriosoides into large terracotta pots this autumn, but with them coming into growth so soon it looks as if I will have to move-up my plans to do this! Hope this is of interest to you all. Steve

Thanks for that, Steve; it is interesting and useful.

The Chinese form has a short dormancy, too, but I'm not sure it correlates with the Taiwanese form. I am sure it is more cold hardy than the Taiwanese form, but certainly not hardy enough for Minnesota, so I overwinter them in the fridge. They always sprout while in the fridge around January, along with L. pomponium and rhodopeum. (I am not saying I grow any of these well, but there you are...)

Again, I'm not saying I grow them well, but from seed they have tended to be rather short lived above the ground, spending a lot of time doing "nothing". This is the first year I have had a couple stay green through the whole summer, and only now are they turning yellow. So I think the Chinese form isn't necessarily dormant in the summer months. Even though Minnesota summers are normally not as hot as the rest of the country, this year was exceptional with almost a month straight of 90°plus days that started on June 20th! And it stayed abnormally hot throughout, even into October. Yet, this is the year my Chinese seedlings stayed green the longest. There is so little congruency with environmental factors, that it is incredibly difficult to even formulate hypotheses.

I am not familiar with what happens with plant growth in general during natural monsoon seasons. One might think this would be the time to grow with lots of natural rain that would bring small amounts of nitrogen with it. In addition, it is the wetter soils (but still airy) that soil flora, including mychorrizae, love compared to just moist soil. This in turn would convert more organic matter into useful nutrients forms for plant uptake. Yes, the monsoons would bring more dreary days, but the summer season has longer days, too.

I recall an account by a contemporary plant "explorer" looking for L. polyphyllum when it would normally bloom and the rains started early that year, so he had very tough going there in Kashmir, I think it was. What makes sense to me is that any lily would evolve to bloom before a monsoon season begins, because rain and humidity make good pollination unlikely.

Always enjoy an opportunity to learn, Steve & Rick.
I had hot conditions prior to lily blooms in early summer. Then rain and more rain. Bloom was spectacular & multiplying each season.

Just a way of saying farewell to 2023, a few lilies in bloom right now:
'Litouwen'

'Malbec'

specially to Rick ,@Leftwood, and Steve,@Steve2020, in helping me in getting started!

Arturo

Thank you Arturo & Rick.
July 2023:

Hoping we all have a blooming 2024 !

Lots of seedlings are growing. I start them at different times, so I have some that are a little more established, while others at the beginning stages need more misting and care. And I have started some lots of lavender seeds. I had success last year and enjoyed making some delicious organic lavender syrup in my latte.