germinating lily seeds

J. Agoston agoston.janos123@gmail.com
Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:59:21 PST
Kathleen,

In january i have fund my lily seeds and put them in moist peat in a
plastic bag in the fridge. It took them about 3-4 months to germinate on
5-10 °C (40-50F). I did the same with iris seeds. I have the folowing
cocnlusions:
1. Asiatic and Trumpet seeds germinated quickly, 3 months was enough for
them.
2. For Oriental seeds well, normally they need more chilling. (I didn't
have any seeds of them since about 2005)
3. Martagon seeds need at least 2 winter periods to have leaves. First year
they only grow small bulbs. You may use the technology for Polygonatum
written down by Aaron Floden (
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/…)
to have mature bulbs sooner.
For Iris seeds:
Most bearded iris and sibirica needed 4 month of cold to germinate, altough
when temperature beginn to drop again in autumn, around 40F new seedlings
appeared.
Iris from sectio Spuria did not really wanted to germinate even after 5+
month of cold in the fridge, but in november a mass of seedlings started to
appear in the trays.
From this i think iris needs colder to germinate, maybe they need to be
frozen in damp peat for a while to have sufficient germination.
This december I have planted a few lilium and iris from seed in open
ground, the soil was allready frozen when i did. Altough it may thaw
daytime. Spring will let us know if these seeds are needed to be sown in
early autumn to have succesfull germination, or not.

Janos
Hungary
Z5a



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