Lily Nook hopes to get gardeners ‘hooked on lilies’

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Published on Thursday, July 28, 2016

Photo by Kira Paterson. After explaining the hybridizing process, Nigel Strohman took the groups to his seedling garden to show them his own hybrids and give the gardeners an idea of what they might get out of breeding their flowers.

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Last Thursday, Friday and Sunday gave amateur green thumbs a chance to grow lilies like a professional. Nigel Strohman, of the Lily Nook in Neepawa, held a free lily hybridizing course on each of those three days during the Lily Nook’s annual Lily Daze. 

Strohman said that hybridizing is all about “trying to improve on what’s out there and come up with something new and exciting.” 

He offered the course to get people more interested in the flower that gives Neepawa its international title. “[It would] be nice to get people to try it at home. Once they start hybridizing, hopefully they’ll get hooked on lilies,” he said. 

The course started off with some handouts that showed diagrams of lilies, labeled with all the parts of the flower. One needs to know these parts, especially the ones on the flower head, to learn how to hybridize the different varieties. 

Strohman then took the onlookers through the step by step process of how to use the pollen of one flower to cross with another flower. He also explained how to label your cross so people can keep track of how they got that breed. 

The hybridizing process is basically the same in most types of flowers, but Strohman said that lilies are one of the easiest plants to cross breed because their reproductive parts are so prominent and easy to find. 

After he finished showing them the process, Strohman took the attendees to his seedling garden, where he has some of his own breeds that he plans to put on the market in the coming years. 

Those who attended the course asked lots of questions and learned a lot about growing lilies, as well as hybridizing, that they didn’t know before. Some of them came to see the lilies and the flower show and came to the course to learn more about the flowers themselves. Others said they plan to try breeding lilies themselves and even see if they can try with other flowers. 

This is the first time Strohman has offered the course, but he hopes that it will become an annual part of the Lily Daze week. Over the three days, about 10 people attended the course, so next year, Strohman said that he’ll probably just offer the course on one day instead. He also said he’ll try offering a different course as well. He mentioned maybe demonstrating how to display lilies, because quite a few newcomers that attended the flower show said they’d be interested in entering their lilies in the competition.