I wanted to share an update after the post about buying
cheap bulbs at the end of their bloom season. I bought two lilies on sale after they had bloomed and planted them
in my garden in late spring. After watching my garden grow this summer, I
realized I wanted to move my iris
toward the back of my garden, into the space where I had put these bulbs. So, I
dug up and replanted the two lilies at the front of my garden. They have a more
attractive vegetation than the iris and seem better suited for the more visible
front of the garden.
They are the same kind of lily but have established
themselves quite differently. This bulb simply grew bigger. The four small scales I pulled
off (on the left) will be planted and will grow into an exact copy of the original
lily. This is asexual reproduction, a type of cloning. The new plant will have
the same genetics as the parent plant. This is one species that lends itself to
increase easily because of the scales. I will have many lilies coming up in a
cluster next summer since I left most of the scales on the bulb. It was really
this brilliant yellow color – how cool is that?!!
Notice the smaller white roots growing off the green stem compared to the fewer but larger yellow ones growing from the bulb. I could have cut off the green stem and planted it separately, another way to increase the number of plants for my garden.
This is the same lily, or at least it was sold as the same.
However, it has developed quite differently over the summer. It has two
possible clones, though I could separate the much smaller scales off of these
bulbs. I don’t know why it put its energy into two new stems instead of a
larger bulb – maybe I knocked off a lot more of the lightweight potting soil
that it came in and my heavy native soil restricted bulb formation. In any case, it was fun to see the difference. I put
both of them back in the ground and will cover them with a card board box for a
couple of days to keep them out of the August sun until they can settle in.
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