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It’s probably been about 20 years since we bought two martagon lily bulbs. One was Claude Schride – a deep red one that has just multiplied and multiplied for us. (The camera sees it as a much brighter red than the human eye)
The second bulb was a light pink – we don’t remember the name – with some yellow highlights in the buds.
Over the years we’ve let the clumps develop and also dug up some of the offset bulbs to spread them around the garden. In addition, seedlings have appeared here and there and they are great fun! We assume they have self-hybridized through multiple crosses. We seem to have every shade of pink to light purple, plus some amazing yellow ones. We are not well-versed in martagons, so we don’t know how this has all happened – we just know we look forward to the couple of weeks in June when we can expect ever-more-dramatic shows of color from these beauties.
Very pretty - they obviously love the garden conditions. We planted some white and purple ones here when we moved in 2004 and unfortunately they slowly died off - I think the deer devastated them over the years - but a few little seedlings popped up here and there and those are finally flowering this year and seem happier than the originals. One is even growing in the gravel of the drive leading to the hosta area!
That is very neat how they've cross pollinated to give you some fun new colors
I keep wondering why neither we nor any of our local friends grow these. So pretty! Is it our summer heat, or the problem with deer? (We have a devil of a time getting our native ally of these, Lilium superbum, to get its bloom past the searching mouths of Odocoileus virginianus.)
I'm not sure why these are not used more... they grow so well for us here in Minnesota. I know a big part of it is they are frequently described as being not financially viable for the big retailers. The common wisdom - and I heard this directly from the folks at the big wholesaler, Walters in Michigan - is that they take so long to make flowering-size bulbs from seed - I usually see it as 7 years - is just too long a window to make them want to mess with it.
On the other hand - they are selling some pretty expensive items, like the Etoh peonies...
I did have to protect mine with a mesh enclosure when they were younger and the deer pressure was heavy. I would think that judicious use of liquid fence would steer the deer away. These don't have much (any?) fragrance, so they don't seem prone to the deer habit of eating my fragrant lily buds just before they bloom. My theory, based on no research, is those beautifully fragrant buds are also "sweet" and thus delicious to deer. I just know it has happened many many times that the deer will come through the night before I anticipate my lily blooms to open and eat just the buds off. They used to damage the young martagon plants - but after they got established, the martagons have just not been targets.
