Hi Annette, If you think $1 per bulb is reasonable, I could give you the info you need for a couple mail order companies that offer many Asiatic & Oriental bulbs for a great price. Even Lowes/HD have some varieties that avg $1 ea. I have several on the way from a mail order mag. myself. Can't beat the price. LMK & I'll forward you the info. Happy diggin' =)

Hi Rick: I buy from 3 suppliers: Vesey's (PEI) has a fairly good selection - nothing unusual but well priced and guaranteed Breck's Canada - large variety - from Holland and a little more expensive The Lily Garden (Vancouver) - a very large selection and a bit more expensive; guaranteed and reliable These all have online catalogues and some will send you a paper catalogue if requested. Occasionally I pick up a few packages of 'sales' items from Canadian Tire. For example, a 5-pack of Orientals (Dizzy) bought this spring, started indoors, blooming now. If you know how to verify the condition of the bulbs through the packaging, you can pick up a number of deals. Hope this helps.

Hi linnea56, The ones that "have 1-3 buds coming off the sides near the top" are your Orientals. Asiatics will have the "Umbel" of bloom stems coming from one point at the top of the stem (like an upside down umbrella). Trumpets have bloom stems coming from the top in a few rings that produce a pyramid like set of buds. I've been confused by another post as well as yours that have mentionned leaves "growing on the sides" vs. "ringing the stem" since both Asiatic and Orientals have alternating leaves up the stem and oriented in all directions, i.e., what you refer to as "ringing the stem" (vs. the collar like whorls of Martagons and North American Species). The main difference is that most asiatic have more smaller somewhat thinner leaves than the Orientals do. So I went out to my garden to check more closely. Sure enough, SOME (within a variety) of my oriental plants would start off with alternating leaves ringing the stem at the bottom but higher up the leaves were only on opposite sides of the stem "like a jacobs ladder" as you noted. This is especially evident on my Rubrum lilies. I don't believe this is standard growth since it would differ between bulbs of the same type. My Siberia and Aruba does it hardly at all, Stargazer a little more, and Rubrum the most. If you mapped them out by size the Trumpet lilies should be in the back since they get quite tall. Similarly your pixie lilies (very short asiatics) should be in front. The trumpets should be easiest to distinguish by their leaf forms. They have a LARGE number of thin leaves. When they first come up they look like Dr. Seuss creatures with "tufts of hair" on their heads. There are two things going on with newly planted bulbs that affects bud count and plant height. 1) Their bulb size - smaller bulbs will produce shorter plants with fewer buds, And 2) though Fall planting is better than Spring planting, even a quality large bulb planted in the Fall will need a season to get fully established. When mature and established you can expect that your Orientals will have from 7-12 buds. It depends on variety, garden conditions, and the vagaries of the weather that season. Trumpet lilies often have large number of buds when established. I have a second year L. Regale with 25 buds on it. But others in the same bed have only 7. The average is about 15. The hardest to distinguish will be the Rubrum (a species Oriental) from the hybrid orientals, since it is one of the hybrids "parents". Once established the hybrids will have thicker stems and larger buds. The Rubrum buds also have three little points sticking up (from three of the nascent petals) while the oriental buds are a smooth ovoid shape. -Helen

I'd be very skeptical about buying lily bulbs in September for fall planting. Unless it is a local grower, you can bet those bulbs were harvested late last fall and held over until this season. Lily foliage is seldom fully ripe by September and the bulbs are not yet ready for harvesting. Local lily growers (several of the largest mail order sources in the country) do not even begin shipping for fall until late October. And since lily bulbs are not benefitted at all by being held in cold storage for the better part of a year, I'd wait until you can get relatively fresh bulbs in spring. From the American Lily Society: There was a time when we were advised to plant lilies only in the fall. Many people believe that fall is still the best time to put in bulbs. However, with newly perfected storage methods, lily bulbs may be carried through the winter in excellent condition and arrive in the spring for planting as crisp and turgid as if freshly dug. It is also very difficult to receive adequately matured bulbs from commercial sources in time for fall planting in most areas. Plant as soon as the ground is workable in the spring, and in just a few weeks the fat âÂÂnosesâ of your lilies will come poking up. It wonâÂÂt be any time at all before your garden is full of fragrant lilies!