LILIES - RHS Lily Group

Species hybrids such as Lilium x dalhansonii and ‘Theodor Haber’ do very
well in full sun in acid and neutral soil, flowering in early June. Lilium ‘Black
Beauty’ also grows very well, liking all types of conditions, regularly flowering
every year.
Lilium x dalhansonii broke the record this June in my lily collections, with
three stems bearing over 30 flowers per stem, flowering for nearly a month. A
very magnificent lily indeed, grown from bulbs obtained at the Lily Group bulb
auction in 2006.
In the summer of 2005, I improved the drainage of my main border, where
I grow most of my lilies, dividing it into three main parts, The North American
and USA part, the middle eastern part and the Chinese/Japanese part, in which
I now grow plant and lily species from all these places. In the autumn of
2005, I acquired several sumptuous lily species, such as Lilium kelloggii, L. grayi,
L. pitkinense, L. kesselringianum and L. carniolicum.
In 2005, I wrote the following as a conclusion to this article: “However, there are
still many lilies that I am looking for my collection. I think that some of them are
almost unfindable, (Lilium catesbaei, L. polyphyllum, L. canadense var. editorum,
L. washingtonianum purpurascens and L. kelleyanum, to state a few). However,
I will persist and look for these, after all, I am only 20, and have (I hope) a long
life of lily growing in front of me…”
I am now 22, and since this article was written, I have moved to England, to study
film and TV production at the University of Westminster for three years. Being a
bit more than half of the year in the UK has also meant that I have more easily
been able to find new and exciting lilies to bring back to Switzerland, with many
specialist nurseries around, and of course, the Lily Group bulb auction, where I
get a lot of jewels. This has meant that the list of species that I am looking for is
gradually becoming smaller. I now have Lilium washingtonianum purpurascens
and L. kelleyanum which I had on my “unfindables list” in 2005. But this does
not mean that I have obtained all the species I am looking for. Some unfindables
have remained unfindables, such as Lilium humboldtii var. occelatum, Lilium
catesbaei, L. canadense var. editorum, L. polyphyllum and L. rhodopeum. I think
that some of these are very rare in cultivation, and the easiest way might be to get
hold of wild collected seed from somewhere. Since one of my aims is to grow all
the species I want by the time I am 30, that leaves time both for searching and
for seedlings to grow to flowering size!
67