Forcing 
For Florists 
Garden Lilies in the Greenhouse 
by S. L. Emsweller—reprinted from The FLOWER GROWER, Aug., 1952 
It is now a well-established fact that cool storage of Easter lily bulbs before plant- 
ing greatly reduces the time required to bring them into bloom. Here at the Plant 
Industry Station, United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md., 
a recently conducted experiment demonstrated that certain garden lilies can be 
made to flower more quickly by the same means. 
The lily varieties used in this experiment were Campfire, Enchantment, Fire- 
flame, Harmony, Joan Evans, Pagoda and Serenade. The bulbs were grown in 
Oregon and 100 of each were received at Beltsville on October 24, 1951. 
Ten bulbs of each variety were planted in the greenhouse at once and the re- 
maining 90 were divided into three lots of 30 each. A lot of each variety was 
stored at each of the following temperatures: 31°, 40° and 50°. On November 
30, after 37 days of storage, ten bulbs of each variety were removed from each 
storage and temperature lot and planted in the greenhouse. A second group of 
bulbs was removed and planted on January 14, and the third on February 25. 
We hoped to have some of these lilies in bloom for the Washington, D.C., Flower 
Show held from March 6-12. About the middle of February we saw that some 
of the plants would be in flower too early for the show and some of these were 
moved from a warm (60° night temperature) to a cold (45°-55°) greenhouse, 
where flowering was retarded; the plants were in fine condition for the show. 
The results of this experiment demonstrated that these varieties performed much 
better when the bulbs were given cold storage. The 10 bulbs planted at once 
did not flower, on the average, until March 28; those stored 37 days at the three 
temperatures, 31°, 40° and 50° all bloomed at about the same time, on Feb. 19. 
Those bulbs stored for 82 days and planted January 14 flowered from March 20 
to 27. The last lots, planted on February 25 after 124 days of storage, were just 
starting to flower in late April and finished about May 10. 
The quality of the flowers and plants was much improved by cold storage of 
the bulbs and the flower yield was greater following storage at 31° and 40°. 
The bulbs stored at 50° produced about the same number of flowers as those 
given no preplanting storage. 
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