My Easter lily died, and as I was removing some of the soil I saw a small green bulb (less than an inch long). The tag that came with it said they can grow year round, and I live in Florida where it always stays warm enough. I decided I wanted to try to salvage that bulb and regrow it. Can I safely remove that bulb from the stem of that dying plant and replant it?
I also have recently planted some small Asiatic lilies (which are growing like mad, I planted the bulbs less than a month ago and they are already over 6 inches tall!) and want to be able to do the same when they die. I hope you can help me out, I love lilies and want to be able to keep these going and then add more and more. Thank you!
The Complete Book of Plant Propagation (edited by Charles Heuser; Taunton Press, 1997) gives these instructions for growing on “stem bulblets” like what you see on your Easter lily (Lilium longiflorum):
“Pick off the bulblets carefully, to avoid damage to any small roots that may already have formed. Plant bulblets at twice their own depth in a prepared pot a layer of sand. …Grow on in a cold frame [I guess that would be outdoors for you, but shaded]. The following fall, pot up individual bulbs separately, or if growth has been vigorous, set … in
the flowering site. …will take 2-5 years to flower.”
The same process should work for your Asiatic lilies (Lilium hybrids), if you have stem bulblets there, or you could try “scaling.” Scaling involves breaking a bulb into individual scales, throwing out any soft or wrinkly ones, and bagging them up in a sand/peat mixture (inflate the bag with air) at 61-77 degrees Fahrenheit for 4-12 weeks. Each scale should sprout bulblets, which you can treat like stem bulblets, except leave them attached to their scale (as long as it is firm) and don’t bury them so deeply while the bulblets are small: 1/4 of sand over the scale bulblets is enough.