Planting Lilies - need help

[nancyp]

I had a small hardy lily plant in my pond at the end of last year. It was placed at the bottom for the winter. This spring it was brought up and placed on the shelf. There has been no sign of any growth at all. Someone here suggested that maybe the fish were nibbling the new growth off, so I took the plant out and kept it in a container near the pond. No new growth at all. So, I took a good look at it. It appeared to have several bulbs in there, so I pulled the whole dirt mass out of the pot to see if there were any roots. There were 11 small bulbs all jammed together in that little pot! They separated out easily. None are mushy. All nice and hard. I figure maybe it was too crowded together so I took them all apart to replant. No roots anywhere and no growth - so now my problem is I cannot tell which end is up! :neutral: One end on some is sort of rounded. Is that the root end? I have some planting medium that I am going to use to put them in new pots. Do they look like they still have a chance? Will they grow now?Is there anything else I can do with them to get them to grow... or should I toss them out, and go buy a new one? Here are some pics of the bulbs pulled out and separated. HELP PLEASE! Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[HTH]

Generally live lilies have a growing tip which will have a stem and a small leaf. But I have had a small few that looked like they were dead make it back to life. That pot was too small.

From personal experiance:
Plant them in a water tight pot with what you think is the growing tip just peaking above the soil. You can put them all along the edge of one pot with the growing tips pointing to the centere. Don't put it in the pond and make sure it does not dry out. The warmth from not having it in the pond may cause it to grow. Should respond in less then a month if it is going to.

 

[nancyp]

Ya know what - I think I just figured it out myself! My tubers look NOTHING like any of the tubers for HARDY lilies, but look EXACTLY like the tubers of a TROPICAL lily to me. They have a rounded end. If I search for 'tropical lily tuber' that is what they show.
Which really annoys me because the store that I bought it from said it was hardy. It was the end of the season - September, and was one of the few lilies left. We took a chance on it knowing that we could only enjoy it for a short time and then it would go down to the bottom till the spring.
So, I am thinking that they are no good.
I am wondering if maybe one or two are the hardy ones....but I doubt it. Darn! :disappointed_anim:

 

[HTH]

Hey I missed that too. I will make the mistake that my wife has been dealing with the tropicals

 

[gardengimp]

If it hasn't gone mushy, I think you still have a chance. Do like Howie said, sit it in a water tight pot out of the pond (with lots of fertilizer). Can't hurt to see what happens.

 

[adavisus]

Yes they do look like tropical waterlily tubers, they are less cold tolerant than hardy waterlilies

Had you known, you could have had a nice stash of tubers to store safe indoors before temps dropped below 50f

The growing point on tropical waterlily tubers tend to die in 40's waters... While the starch within the tuber is still good and hard it will be a matter of time before it rots off, turns mushy or hollow with no sprout able to form

You can put them in a bowl of water in steady temps like 70f, if there are any live sprouts they will start up in a week usually

Regards, andy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21940871@N06/
http://swglist.wordpress.com/

 

[topofthehill1]

my fish ate all the shoots off my tropical lilies and out of the water in a shollow bucket and eventually they did regrow. but it took alot longer than I thought it would