Judging by the size of Joe's hands, the flowers look to be about a good 4 to 5 inches across, at least. What would you say, Joe?

I think I will have to break down and order one. It is beautiful. Thanks for showing the photos.

Yes Lorn I'd say that's about right.

Seems to me that I remember Bob Gibson of B&D had a quick way of estimating flower size, even in photographs. But I forgot how to do it, now. Connie, do you know what that might be?

I remember him talking about it but not the details.

Does anyone have any thoughts about the water needs of this beautiful hybrid?
I have never grown Lilium pardalinum and when I read about it I get a bit conflicting info - some say it's thirsty - so I wonder if Fusion would require more soil moisture during summer than the average hybrid because of its parents?

Just received my Fusion bulbs from Dutch Gardens today. I'm very happy with the size of them. I think all are double nosed. Now to get them through the winter. Looking forward to blooms next summer.

I'm thinking about trying to do some scaling with one of the bulbs. Have never done it before, but read the sticky. Don't want to use a whole bulb, just a few scales. Do you think this would be a good lily to try?

Hi Susan: You should always break off a couple scales to clone for safety back up just in case of something unexpected.

However, this cultivar has shown signs of very rapid multiplication as it is, so cloning for the purpose of making many extras seems impractical and unnecessary. This one will colonize rapidly enough on its own, the way it is. In your picture, all the white color ones are new growth for this year and you can expect everything to double again next year. Since you have three bulbs, I'd suggest planting 2 in one garden and 1 in another garden for increased safety.

EDIT: Divided post into two paragraphs only.

Thanks for the idea to plant in 2 places Lorn. Sounds like a wise idea. Scaling may be more work than I'm willing to do, but now am wishing I had done it on a couple others this year.

Shoot. I wish I had read this before planting my new lilies. Orienpets. Lost all of mine this spring. Drat. So replaced them. I really need to cover them but am unsure with what. Whole leaves are not recommended as they ice up and can be a bear to remove in spring. I know that I have to wait for frozen ground (which is fast occurring) before mulching. I wonder how roofing shingles would work

No, roofing shingles will not work---they'll smoother the bulbs. And besides, mice would love to make a toasty, dry nest under them. I'm not sure if oak trees grow in Anchorage, but if the do, oak leaves dry crisp and stay crisp and make an excellent winter mulch by trapping lots of air and snow. If you don't have oak leaves, then use spruce pine boughs scattered about randomly. It's what I use. They catch and hold the snow in place. Snow is probably the best natural insulator of all. An 'airy' mulch is key for good insulation. A 10 inch snow cover is about 90% air. If you don't get enough snow, you can use shredded pine shavings---the kind that hobby horsemen use to bed their horse stalls. It comes in bale form and the cost is reasonable. Most farm stores have it; Walmart might even carry it. I've used it. It rakes up quite easily for spring cleanup. I recommend straw only as a last resort. It works but it attracts mice and is difficult to clean up in the spring

@Oberon46 one method that is fairly popular here (especially in the northern parts of Sweden) is to plant less hardy bulbs and perennials in a raised bed filled with sharp sand. It's important that there isn't too small fractions in it as that will hinder drainage. During the summer one can use grass cuttings that are periodically replaced as a mulch and this will also provide all necessary nutritions for the bulbs/plants. If using other summer mulch one would of course need to fertilize a little extra!

I know this wasn't specifically what you asked for and not something to do this year, but I noted in another thread that you had previous problems with a freeze rain thaw cycle and now you mention roofing shingles, so I was thinking that you had realised a need to keep your bulbs a bit on the drier side.

I haven't tried this myself as I have 25 feet of pure sand here, so drainage is usually not a huge problem, unless I do something stupid as amending the soil too much, but I thought it could be interesting to you. This method has been tested on lilies according to what I read on various forums with good results.

@William
I assume by sharp sand you mean just that rather than rounded edged sand. It would provide better drainage and doesn't settle into a mass as the smooth edged stuff would. I could raise the level of two of my raised beds after digging up all the plants for safekeeping, skimming off the rather rounded top layer. They are surrounded by rather nice concrete decorative block but very expensive. Perhaps I could substitute treated timbers for the cap pieces then make a mixture of sharp sand, garden soil, and compost to refill. The one bed is rather narrow, only 2' across and 31' long. I of course worry about building it up as if we have inadequate snow, as last year, it subjects it to the spring freeze thaw cycle. I am sure it could use the improved drainage however. The beds are about four years old and have settled rather heavily. The only plants I would be concerned about moving are some peonies among which are Lemon Chiffon and a yellow draping form whose name elludes me at the moment. Certainly it is a spring project. Do you think sand would be preferable to say perlite? Granted perlite is not attractive in a garden bed.

@roosterlorn
I will look into finding the pine shavings. I could also run them through my grinder unless that would lessen the goal of introducing 'airyness.' I have sent a note to the botanical garden to ask for the left overs of spruce bows from a workshop on wreath making. I have straw and agree that it makes a terrible mess. Last year we used it to lighten the ground green stuff to keep it from clogging the grinder. Worked great and when it was all ground began to heat up immediately. You could see the steam arising from the green-straw-wood grindings. First and only time I have managed to achieve a mass that was 'working'. Mown grass will heat up but doesn't maintain the temp as it is all green and burns out fairly quickly.

Thank you both. It gives me much to think about and I do have time to implement some of it as our weather is holding really well.

@Oberon46, yes sharp sand, this is also called builders sand. This is made from crushed rock material. However this isn't really crucial, the important thing is that the grain size isn't too small.

The idea actually isn't to mix sharp sand with soil, it's to grow in pure sharp sand and nothing else. The air space between the grains are what matters here, so I don't think perlite would make this mix any better. Perlite is more for mixing with soil and you will not use any soil here!
I don't know what fractions of sand you have available locally, but around 0-6 millimetres is pretty good from what I read. I'd try to make sure that there isn't salt, clay or other nasty stuff in it. A good seller would know this. This is normally fairly cheap stuff, cheaper than buying good soil when you buy it in bulk.

Of course there are many opinions about how to build the ultimate sand bed, so techniques could vary but...
Personally If I were you and wanted to try this, I'd leave the peonies in and only replace the soil with sharp sand were you wanted to plant lilies. It won't be absolutely necessary to rise the bed further up. Just dig out the soil to around a feet or a little more if the drainage is poor and refill with pure suitable sand of your choice. Leave enough space to put 4 inches of grass mulch on top and refill this continuously during the summer. When you refill you should of course make sure to leave a little room to the stalks. It's good if the grass cuttings aren't too short as it could end up too compact. You could also grind weeds and put this in, but it wouldn't look as tidy. This is supposed to be used fresh and green as it will have the most nutrition then. Closer to the autumn you could use a little older material.

I noted that the Swedish garden writer that made this method known here devoted a good section to lilies and recommended to mulch directly after planting (in spring, as this is the usual time for planting here, simply because bulbs aren't usually available in the autumn) and then help the emerging shoots to break free of the mulch, if necessary.

In the autumn it's good to mix a little leaf into the grass mulch. For winter covering he - like Lorn - liked using boughs (he used Picea abies, Norway spruce to a depth of 4 inches).

Then there of course is other sharp sand methods, that doesn't involve covering with grass cuttings, but is to improve hardiness as well.
Se for instance Ian Young's Bulb Blog:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/lo...
Or for links to all his blogs:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/

So there are many possibilities and this method is also very good for rainy areas such as Scotland where Ian Young is located or perhaps for folks in the PNW region that would have issues with too much moisture during winter.

BTW there is a big difference between spreading out grass cuttings and other greens than storing it in a pile. The pile will heat up a lot, but when you spread this out, it won't be a problem. I have in the past mulched with grass cuttings and it's really excellent. The only reason I don't do it as much these days are that I don't usually collect the grass cuttings any longer. If I had enough material, I'd still do it!

Thanks again William. I have a source for spruce boughs and bagged two large bags of leaves. I will run them through my shredder. I will also locate more sand (I have about half a bag in my shed) and will dig up the lilies I just planted and give it a trial. Should be interesting. I cut and pasted your instructions into word and have printed them off. Terrible memory I have.

I wish you the best of luck with your efforts and sorry for causing you so much extra work . As you now are planting in pure sand, you will also be able to plant the bulbs a little deeper than normal and this will also help with over wintering.
Edit - Spelling

Did you read the article on the front page about over wintering dahlia plants using straw and a bucket or plastic sheets? Sounds interesting. I may try both methods. We will see in the spring which works better.

Well, now I have read it

I'm sort of familiar with this method and variants of it to protect sensitive plants, but I haven't tried it myself directly, the main thing being that I'm just really very bad with applying winter protection to plants. I 'forget' about it a little to often , so I prefer other methods, such as good location selection and improving the soil.

I do move pots into the unheated greenhouse, which is basically doing the same thing as it protects them from unneeded and unwanted moisture during the winter. People who like to grow palm trees in cold climates also often do similar stuff to protect them and wrap them in for winter.

What I thought was very interesting here is the use of the straw on top of the plastic as opposed to having the plastic on top. I haven't seen this before and my thought here is that it's really interesting as that perhaps would eliminate the problem with extra heat being collected under the plastic in sunny weather. Normally I think the resulting heat build-up to be a problem as one could be forced to constantly apply and remove the plastic depending on the weather to prevent growth from starting too early.

One factor to take in consideration is however that there is capillary movement of water and depending on your soil, this could be more than one would think and the soil below the plastic could still be quite wet, especially if you cover a very small area. On the other hand you already have a raised bed here, so that is a good thing and that should help a lot. Also one perhaps wouldn't want the soil to become too dry as to hinder proper root development.

However I think the method is basically very sound and can work well. I think it's commendable that you want to try different methods to find one that suits your climate and local conditions the best.

I'm planting mine, received this spring, planted one bulb per pot. I grew them all summer in gallon pots, and really did not pay much attention to them. I'm now ground planting them to overwinter and grow for next year. I'm thrilled with the increase. I was going to plant them with the contents of three pots in a large hole, but these have increased so well that I'm planting the contents of each pot in its own spot...landscape style. There are four nice bulbs in this picture, and a bottle cap for comparison.

It seems everybody's is doing great so far. The next big test will be how well they winter over with spring freeze-thaw cycles. Yours look good, LJM.