RHS Journals

By Michael Jefferson-Brown

Lilies continue to grow in popularity, something that has been happening significantly from the introduction of the Mid Century Hybrids by Jan de Graaf in Oregon, USA, over 50 years ago. 'Enchantment' was the most famous of this Asiatic group and soon persuaded gardeners that lilies of this group were not difficult plants; for instance, they proved to be one of the easiest and most rewarding of pot plants.

	L. lancifolium, the Tiger Lily
'Star Gazer'

The reputation of lilies as difficult plants had been established by many of the species, despite the happy-go-lucky nature of a few such as L. lancifolium, the Tiger Lily. The inhibitions of the species were cancelled our by cross breeding, while the value of the upright-facing hybrids as cut flowers was soon realised and founded a new industry. The only other group to challenge the popularity of these Asiatic Hybrids was the Orientals, the heavily perfumed, large-flowered kinds originally bred from two species, L. auratum and L. speciosum. 'Star Gazer' has been a massively important cultivar in this group because of its upward poise and leading position in the cut flower market. The only drawback to the Orientals has been their acute antipathy to lime.

	'Connecticut King'
'Journey's End'

The Asiatic Group was bred from such species as L. amabile, L.bulbiferum *, L. cernuum, L. concolor, L davidii *, L. dauricum *, L lancifolium * (syn. L. tigrinum), L. leichtlinii, L. pumilum, and early hybrid series such as L. x hollandicum and L. x maculatum.
Famous Asiatic cultivars include 'Enchantment', 'Connecticut King' and 'Fire King'.
The Oriental Group was bred from species with L. auratum *, L. japonicum, L. rubellum, L, speciosum *.
Famous Oriental cultivars include 'Star Gazer', 'Journey's End' and 'Casa Blanca'.

* The most important species in the lily revolution

Now lilies are poised for further dramatic boosts in popularity. The Asiatics have been successfully mated with the white trumpet L. longiflorum, well-known as the Easter Lily and widely sold as a cut flower in western Europe and the USA. These hybrids are surprisingly robust and free-flowering. The Orientals have been crossed with trumpet lilies and the lime-tolerant L. henryi and the progeny are proving to be splendid garden plants, being very strong and not fussy about soils. Some lime in the soil is no longer a death knell as it is for pure-bred Orientals.

Orienpets

The idea of using the lime friendly L. henryi to raise a series of Orientals that all gardeners can grow easily has been around for a long time. The major breakthrough came with the raising of 'Black Beauty' from L. speciosum var. rubrum x henryi in the 1950s. This has become a popular cultivar due to its great strength, tolerance of diverse composts and free-flowering habit. If bulbs are left undisturbed they will gather strength and produce a crop of perhaps 50 flowers to a stem, but larger bulbs can produce up to 100, while it is not uncommon for a count to reach 150 on a single stem. The rich crimson shades of the flowers are highlighted by a narrow white edge to the tepals. The flowers are tightly recurved in the L. speciosum mode.
As 'Black Beauty' was sterile it could only be used in breeding after a tetraploid variant had been induced. This is an even tougher plant with larger flowers of very deep crimson-red on stems 1-1.6m high. This vigorous tetraploid has been crossed with a tetraploid form of the late-flowering, New Zealand raised, 'Journey's End', a cross achieved in both America and Holland, and many fine seedlings resulted. 'Arabesque' is one of the leading clones and like all the Orienpets this is a hugely vigorous plant with tough, strong stems and large open flowers of very deep glowing rosy-crimson, which is slightly paler at the tepal edges. The blooms are impressive, being about 15cm across and opening almost flat, the tepal tips recurved; plenty of these very long-lasting blooms are produced per bulb.
'Silk Road' has large flowers of a wider bowl form, with the crimson shading down to white margins. My plants grow to between 1.5-2m tall and produce large flower heads each year. It is one of the features of all the Orienpets that they build up year after year to give heavier and heavier crops of flowers, normally from the middle of July through August. 'Catherine the Great' varies the pattern by having flowers of pale yellow, instead of the almost obligatory crimson shades, whilst 'Smokey Mountain' has tough flowers of graded shades of gold and orange and is suffused crimson, darker in the centre, with the tepals spreading and recurving sharply.
Perhaps the most impressive of these amazing cultivars in our garden is 'Scheherazade' which, for the past few years, has produced stems 2.75-3m high each with around 40 blooms. Each flower is a good size, opening wide but with the tepal ends recurving. The colour is deepest crimson with white beading and with a green star in the flower centre that is such a feature of the 'Black Beauty' parent. Bulbs reach 15-20cm across; scales taken from them will produce flowering bulbs after just a couple of seasons.

Longiflorum-Asiatic Hybrids

After a period of 50 years of pre-eminence the Asiatic hybrids are now facing a challenge from a series of cultivars bred between them and L. longiflorum. This white trumpet species, so well-known as a cut flower, is normally thought to be tender outside in Britain. It is an extraordinary species grown under glass, for seed sown at the beginning of the year can result in bulbs that bloom in the autumn! This precocious performance and strong growth is transmitted to its offspring; the hybrids not only grow vigorously and quickly but they have much stronger stems and a wide head of large flowers. They typically bloom in June and July, looking very showy then and a picture of health with shining neat foliage.

One of the most pleasing LA hybrids is 'Salmon Queen'

So far these new hybrids are classified with the Asiatics, but are usually listed as LA hybrids in catalogues (L = L. longiflorum, A = Asiatic hybrids). They have been exhibited at RHS Shows. 'Rodeo' has proved a popular cultivar in clear mid-pink with the centre of the blooms lightly freckled. It has up to eight blooms in an upward-facing bunch. At present, all LA introduced cultivars have upward-facing flowers. 'Royal Lace' is a fine selection with broad white blooms. Others to date include: 'Aerobic' (ivory white), 'Bestseller' (soft apricot), 'Nomad' (purple-pink), 'Royal Dream' (pale primrose), 'Royal Fantasy' (rich sulphur), 'Royal Paradise' (dark plum-red) and 'Showbiz' (white flushed pink). One of the most pleasing of all is 'Salmon Queen' with flowers of a more or less uniform soft orange. All stand about 1.2m tall.
An astonishing instance of the vigour of these LA hybrids is one of our seedlings called 'Big Boy', with 20cm wide flowers of red and orange. This first bloomed in 1995 as one bulb with a single stem. In the late autumn this was dug up to reveal that the original bulb had divided and several substantial bulbs had formed on the underground stem. These were planted out to give us 13 flowering stems the following year, the average number of blooms per head being 14. In over 60 years of growing lilies I have never experienced a comparable rate of natural increase. Other seedlings have proved almost as prolific.

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