Hi Jenn. Yes, I've found a lot of amazing tips here. I had a vegetable garden once many years ago, and it was a community garden. That however was my only try and I've never had trees to care for nor flowers. We were Army so we moved a lot. Now though, we're settled and I'm going to try just about everything! I'm so very excited and thank you so much for the congrats. I've waited for years for this moment and it's finally here! Happy Gardening to you as well. :)

Dee RAnders is referring to the bulletin Board of the ASCFG. I have posted the topic entitled "Succession Planting Lillies" - each poster begins with >>>> and ends in >>>I'm guessing that when pre-cooled lily bulbs are shipped, they "wake up," and cannot be further delayed by placing in a cooler for a few weeks. In other words, I can't receive a shipment of 200, and immediately plant just 50 in crates and store the rest in the cooler to plant in batches every couple of weeks or so. Has anyone been able to do this?>>>zone 5 Nebraska on Tues, September 27, 2011 Yes, you can do it! There is of course a limit to how long you can hold them and that can vary by variety.They can also be planted into bulb crates and put into the cooler and then pulled out at intervals to stagger them out.>>>>Zone 7, MD on Tues, September 27, 2011 Depending on how long lily bulbs are in transit, and the temperature during transit, lily bulbs may still be partially frozen when they arrive. You'll want to let them thaw completely before planting - don't try to pull them apart while frozen. Once they thaw out, the'll "wake up". You can plant some and hold some in the cooler for a short period of time. You want to get them planted before stem shoots start to sprout. Every variety is different, with some sprouting in a few days, and some taking much longer. The same variety can change throughout the year depending how long they have been held at the suppliers freezer. If you hold some bulbs in the cooler to extend your planting time, be sure to keep an eye on them and be ready to plant them if they start to sprout.>>>>>>> >>>>>Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - 02:09 am: Can someone advise me on a lily problem I had? I received some lily bulbs several weeks back, but didn't check each bag thoroughly upon arrival. I immediatly did open the crate and set each variety out in a dark air-conditioned room. Upon opening a couple of the varieties a couple of days later, some of the bulbs looked dry and freezer burned. Needless to say most of those didn't come up and the ones that did turned brown. I planted them in Promix-BX in very clean/bleached crates. The other lilies are doing good. In the 106-110 F. weather that they arrived in, the bulbs on the outside edges of the crate were warm. Can someone advise me if I should have done something differently? Could the freezer burn have been from the shipping conditions? Should I accept bulbs like this in the future? Since I didn't inspect them closely enough the 1st day, I didn't bother to call the supplier. I am not always sure what should be acceptable.>>>>> Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - Does anyone have experience with programming their own lily bulbs? I can no longer use the pre-programmed ones until I find an organic source. What are my chances of success if I re-plant those I have in crates, put them outside, place in cooler probably Feb/March,and bring out in succession? Any resources you can point me to? Experience with this? Not sure I'll have a big enough cooler!>>>>>>>Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - If you replant the lilium bulbs you have outside then they will naturalize/perenialize and will be starting to bloom in their natural cycle next spring. Most of the lilies bloom from late spring into the early summer period. If you want to time crops, then you have to give lilium bulbs a minimum of 1000 hours of cooling and after that you need to freeze them in at 28-29 fahrenheit to keep them stored for a prolonged period, and bring them out on a planned forcing schedule. A BIG enough freezer is what you will need, NOT just a big enough cooler. The cooler you will need for your flower storage. And for the question above about the lilybulbs, by all means please contact your supplier and discuss the issue you have. The day when a customer thinks that a supplier should not be bothered, is NOT the day that I want to see happen.>>>>>Thursday, September 29, 2011 - I get a shipment of lily bulbs every two weeks. I plant all the bulbs into crates as soon as they arrive. During warmer months I put half the crates into the cooler for one to two weeks and half the crates go into the greenhouse. The cooler slows down the time the lilies take to sprout which helps stagger their bloom time. The longest I've kept planted lilies in the cooler has been three weeks. I have noticed that some varieties, especially when it's very hot catch up to the other lilies and they all bloom at once anyway. Sorry, I don't know which varieties.>>>>>Iowa, Zone 5 on Friday, September 30, 2011 - We do the same as K..., except that we put all of them in the cooler for two weeks as that gives them more time to develop roots before they hit the heat. This year because we had a very cool time, which slowed the early ones, and then a very hot spell which accelerated the later ones, we picked three separate plantings is about a weeks time. Nuts!!!!!!!>>>>>Zone 7, TN oanon Monday, October 03, 2011 - I also store in cooler a week or two and then plant out to stagger, but another method we use is to cut when in bud and store in refrigerator. I can delay bloom a couple weeks that way. We have to keep our cooler at 44 or it frosts over and lilies open at that temp so we use extra frig at lower setting >>>>>Iowa, Zone 5 on Tuesday, October 04, 2011 - ? at what 'bud stage' are you harvesting? I know that the ones that are brought in are usually cut green and are not as nice as 'vine ripened'. I usually try to harvest about the day before they open naturally and then can hold some varieties for over a week or two in the cooler (38). There are a few that do not like that treatment.

So how much area do you need to cover? And why do you want to overdrive? LOL! Seriously, there is no good reason to overdrive unless you need more light intensity than you can get from regular fluorescent tubes (and I doubt you do for your orchids), just use as many tubes as necessary to get the light. This is because electricity is the expensive part of plant lights, not the tubes themselves, and overdriving uses electricity less efficiently. You may adjust this calculation if your mother pays the utilitiy bills but you have to buy the plant lights ;) Without direct sunlight, the light intensity more than a foot or two from any window is surprisingly low, the human eye is remarkable in hardly noticing but the light intensity can drop a factor of ten or more just by going an extra couple of feet into the room. Probably you have enought experience to play it by ear and adjust the light as you you go along based on what the plants tell you. I believe that the Ott lights are all high CRI tubes designed for excellent colour rendition and daylight simulation. And that the GE Plant & Aquarium lights are somewhat pink, intended to make best use of the preferred red and blue wavelengths for photosynthesis. You might want to make your decision on that basis alone. Particularly as a supplemental light, I wouldn't consider the spectrum to be critical and the plants should grow healthily under either.

Oh Anja, don't give up hope!! I can't remember whether mine took a long time to grow or not!! I put Green & Saturn on both papilio flowers so if the cross takes, I will have plenty of seeds to go around. Not a special cross as aulicum and papilio would be but if it takes it should be good enough!! I'm looking at all the possibilities for Jungle Star and have decided just to try a couple and if they don't take then I do have a second scape on the way. I've got to control myself this season as I am really inundated with seedlings from past years, some of them are quite large and cybister and papilio crosses. I just have to get them to bloom!! I also don't want to stress out my new bulb as unless they offer this again next year, this might be my only bulb of this clone. I will definitely try one with Madame Butterfly and some old Santos pollen. Listen to me, I actually almost believe myself Ha! I do have another Jungle Star from a Dear Friend that has yet to bloom and expecting it to be slightly different in appearance. It's doing well but still a few years away from flowering. I thought I had another one but it turned out to be a Sumatra cross or maybe even a full fledged Sumatra, I couldn't really tell from the first flowering. J L Your bulbs from WFF look great!! We all look forward to seeing them all bloom! Luckily the weather hasn't been all that cold and as long as the boxes don't sit out in a cold truck during the evening we should be good to order for another few weeks! I'm just waiting for a Bogota to arrive from WFF; I struck out with ETBG so I thought I might as well give them a try. If I get another papilio then I'll live with it!! Donna