500 crosses Eric! You will be busy. I'll try 200 to 300 crosses in good bloom years. Have fun!
Nothing too far out here planned. But I inventoried ALL of my lilies last fall for the first time in 15 years, so I actually now know what I have (and no longer have). I've made lists of the previously unbloomed seedlings I currently have planted in-ground using any of the following, and will check to see if there are additional crosses I should make with any of them this year:
'Awesome'
'Tropical Isle' (and its direct hybrids)
Sims 2N picotee trumpets
X sulphurgale 'Vico Gold'
'Pink Jazz'
tetraploid white trumpets with picotee margins. I have very few remaining, both of Bob Griesbach's named introductions and also ones I've started from seed. Our Midwestern contingent suspects these are not reliably persistent here (zones 4-5), as Bob converted and then used Lilium regale in his tet trumpet breeding. Regale bulbs are hardy here, but they and their hybrids can come up early and then get frosted off by late freezes. Multiple freeze years in a row tend to do them in. So I want to always have new seedlings coming along, and also seed in storage.
I like reading about others' intents/efforts to cross the trumpet species -- sulphureum, sargentiae, and leucanthum -- with other species and hybrids. In my USDA Zone 5 garden, only leucanthum has any hardiness at all (not much), and even the hybrids I've made from it in the past didn't always persist. I've started L. leucanthum over from seed the past two years, and have been container growing them with better winter protection. Some of the bulbs may bloom this year. If the flowers are any good, I'll try crossing leucanthum with 'Tropical Isle' and some of my other long-lived trumpet hybrids I know are bone hardy. Here's a few hybrids with leucanthum I have lost that I would repeat (or something similar):
Lilium [leucanthum x 'Amethyst Temple']
Lilium ['Lady Alice' x leucanthum]
Another lost hybrid I will repeat as I still have both parents:
Lilium [['Gold Eagle' x 'Primrose Beacon'] x ['Tropical Isle' x self]]
And another cross that got away from me. I had both parents bloom last year, and could have repeated the cross but forgot about the earlier cross between them until checking notes this winter. Image is from a really nice seedling Rimmer grew from my seed (and also lost).
([['Tropical Isle' x self]] x 'Gold Eagle']
As I make other crosses this summer, I will wear a path from my backyard to the basement computer to see if I have already made a given cross previously (or two or three times)...
