My lilies were pretty good this year, but I do water. We had a LOT of water in late May, then thru into June. People couldn't get their hay in. We had about a month of fairly cold winter, good frozen ground, down deep. It didn't happen until Feb. I would call it a pretty mild winter, hardly any weather below zero F. The early lilies came and went quickly in that rain. They were a bit short, not tiny though and on older bulbs. I only planted a few new bulbs of any kind last year. The new ones did nothing but foliage, but they were small so no surprise there. Ebay purchases. All the rest of my lilies have been pretty wonderful, just seems they go fast in our heat and humidity this season. My raised beds seem to need more watering, have better drainage. I plant a lot of smaller Allium, different kinds, in there to protect the bulbs. Also have the Tulip Imperials, in that bed, really stinky bulbs, for bulb protection of real Tulips from mice and voles. Our squirrels have plenty of nuts and seeds, don't seem to bother the bulbs much if dirt is not disturbed. I leave my Tulips in place over summer so this works OK. My Trumpet lilies were about normal size, plenty of blooms, along with the Tiger lilies, Orientals and the now blooming Orienipets. The Orienipets are in their 2nd summer, so I thought 5ft, 25 blooms a stem, was a good show for them. I do like the color, gentle scents. PLUS, I am the only one with them or any lilies in the neighborhood!! We get a lot of bike riders, some walkers, going by who compliment me on the flowers, great smells. Always nice to hear!! I am real busy at beheading all stems which are done blooming. I don't want to waste plant energy on growing seeds, so I cut off all the tops as blooms disappear. Might be helpful to those small lilies this year, send the energy back to making better bulbs. I do think most of my garden stuff was ahead this year, bloomed early. Much came and went very quickly, maybe the humidity, though we have had GREAT weather locally. Really only terribly hot the last couple weeks. Getting pretty dry though we are getting some showers, enough to even make puddles. I would say we are still in drought. Trees are showing stress, dry, leaves falling, brown edges. Better luck next year, hope that rotten red lily bug doesn't arrive with next season of growth. Much complaining about it from Eastern folks.

Ellen, Absolutely. In fact, I can do better. Will dig up some grown bulbs for you for our September swap. Talking about being polite....I missed out on a lot of fabulous plants from your garden, because I didn't dare ask for them. Then lo and behold, someone else asked and you, being so generous, dug them up and gave them away!! I could not believe my eyes. ......Will that Rheum palmatum be grown enough by Sept to give me a piece? ...lol.... wheedling now....Does it have purple leaves? I was too dazzled with your garden I could not take everything in. :-D

cicco, this has to be one of my favorite topics. Brecks 'Lily Tree" ad from the spring catalog. As an avid lily grower, I was sucked in when I received the catalog, I had to read on. Was I missing something new in lily development? Well, I quickly figured out that they were talking about the vigor of the orienpet lily, a cross between the oriental lilium and trumpet lilium. They are calling the third year stalk of their orienpets a "Lily Tree", with a height of 6 - 8 feet, and some off shoots of the mother bulb. And they "trademarked" the name "lily tree". Oh dear. These are wonderful lilies, that is true. But trees, they are not. I would NEVER , ever consider holding a bike up with a lily, or group of lilies, as shown in one of their pictures. The stalks are strong, yes, but tree like? It was unfortuante that they marketed these this way, especially for people not familiar with these types of lilies. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be some very confused people out there when they plant a bulb and hope for a tree. Lilies don't branch out like trees or shrubs either. They are tall lilies, they are wonderful to grow, they are suppose to be more disease resistant, but trees, they are not. Enjoy them, but yes, they are simply beautiful lilies that get better year after year.

I weeded my old garlic bed (6' x 20') today. The bed has been empty after the garlic was harvested. I found so many volunteer garlic plants. I planted German Red bulbils in this bed. It is amazing that there are so many of them. I already harvested several hundreds. I believe I planted about 660 bulbils. I'm going to wait for one or two weeks and fill in the empty spot with the same bulbils or even some garlic rounds in the empty spots. This sounds a lot of work since they are still densely planted. But it won't be precise. And I'll only fill in large empty space. I have another bulbil bed in similar situation. I'm going to weed it this week or weekend. I think I left even more bulbils there. So I may just let it grow by itself since there are 14 rows, 9'x16'. Very hard to get in the bed.