Scaling Lily Bulbs
Nicky Nicky
Posts: 76
in Plants
Well I have just finished scaling 200 lily bulbs of 20 different varietys. I thought I would buy more variety lower quantity of each and try and multiply them from scaling them.
Tomorrow I will place them in their individual bags with moist compost and place them in the airing cupboard. My only question is. Do you think I should soak them for 10-15 mins in a weak 1 part bleach 10 part water solution to kill and bacteria or fungi on the new scales before putting them away? I did try to only pick out healthy looking scales but you never do know.
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Humm well poped into two local nursery stores here in the north of france. Looking to buy rooting hormone, Soil Ph test kit and some fungicide and neither of them sold any of it. Very odd what type of growers are they over here. They did have lots of nice plants for sale though.
Look like I will have to turn to the internet in my search.
oui j'habite en France. However its my partner that is fluent in French. Luckily the plants dont know the difference so we still get along fine. I think it is well worth snapping off a few scales before poping them in the ground just to see, you never know your luck.
I have just taken on a rather large garden with not so many plants in. However some of the mature trees are amazing! I am trying to bulk up the garden material without adding too much £$£. its just so annoying going into the stores and them not having any of the items that i'm sure almost every little garden center in the UK would carry. The only benefit is i can get 30% more plants with the euro sterling exchange
Once I can get my hands on some fungicide Im just going to give them an extra dusting. I do think that I can see some white residue/ powder where I guess they dusted them before shipping. You can never be too sure. I think you will be surprised how quick they spring to life, i'm sure you will see them flower many many times.
well 10 weeks have passed and I thought I would post a little update on how they scales were doing. I thought each scale might produce one bulblet but they seem to have lots on each one. Fingers crossed they will produce lots of new plants
well done Nicky
, might take a while to get to flowering size bulbs.
I can wait a few years. I needed a cheap way to bulk up stock
I cant afford to buy flowering size bulbs in the number I want,
Well another update as I have now moved the little bulblets into trays. And so thought I would add a few more photos of they and also My new order of Mother plant lily bulbs arrived so Also I have attached a few more images of the whole process for anyone who might be interested.
First an update on the scales from February 21st. It was only actually 7 weeks from beginning to these photos. NOT the stated 10 weeks as I thought above. (Sorry about that) I was surprised at quite how many bulblets would form on each scale. Some formed better than others depending on variety but all 20 bags produced a success at least 85% of scales in each bag had a minimum of 1 fully formed bulblet. There were about 6 different varieties that produced an enormous amount, with sometimes even 7 new bulblets on each scale (as below)
In face for me it was such a success (first time trying this.) That I decided to try again but this time with a lot more scales as I had just received my new batch for the garden. Maybe I wont have the same success rate but we can only try.
As before I mixed some cheap universal compost, expanded clay pellets, plain charcoal, Cat litter and this time a scoop of flower of sulphur (fungicide) Ignore the orange stuff on the corner that’s just a bit of rust on my wheel barrow Mix it all up and hey presto you have yourself a new potting mix. It worked great last time and is a cheap mix that seems to do the job.
This time I had A LOT more scales I had 3 trays like this with 3 different varieties. To be honest the mother bulbs were not at large crisp or as fresh but the price was right so worth a go. I layered a handful of scales then a layer of my mixture like lasagna in some Carrefour bags (ASDA bags) and will pop them up in the airing cupboard like I did with the little bags. I also put together two smaller inspection bags, so I can hope to see and judge the growth from the larger bags via the smaller see through plastic ones without having to disturb the bulk bags. They are not in a fully sealed bag like the first batch and I did moisten the compost more than I did with the last batch. For Some reason I felt they were a little dry last time and would have put on more growth if I had just kept them a little more moist. So were giving that a try this time Fingers crossed.
So in the spring I scaled 200 lily bulbs and now have well in excess of 3000+ babies(estimate) which are doing great. Do you think I can scale the same lily's again now? They are quite large. And place the scale bags on the water heater for the winter. Do you think I would get a second crop for the year ?