Lilies and Related Plants - RHS Lily Group

My experience with Lilium fargesii
Lilium fargesii was given a bad press by E . H . Wilson, but Rimmer de
Vries begs to differ in his article about this not unlovely little lily .
Lilium fargesii is a woodland-edge lily from central China that was first mentioned
by Franchet in the French language Journal of Botany in 1892 and named for
Guillaume Farges (1844 - 1912) a 19th century French plant explorer in China.
Farges’ Lily is perhaps the smallest Lilium of the genus, growing for me to about
35cm (14") in a pot with the bloom opening to the size of a US Quarter, then, as it
aged shrinking to about the size of a US Nickel.
I obtained three bulbs of L . fargesii in the fall of 2008 from Chen Yi as L-10 offered
as L . pumilum (Chen Yi lists L . fargesii as L-09, so they must have been mixed
up). Because the bulbs arrived so late in the year (late November/early December)
and I live in Michigan, I potted them up in a typical mix suitable for rock garden
plants, then put the pot in a pit house, or cold frame, and forgot about it.
Last summer in mid July when several of us lily nuts returned from a trip to
Robert Griesbach’s wonder garden in Wisconsin, we noticed a tiny green lily, in
flower, growing in the corner of my cold frame and speculated on what it was. I
posted a photo on the email Lilium group: Lilium@yahoogroups.com and both
Calvin Helsley and Joe Nemmer responded that I had bloomed L . fargesii, a not so
easy lily to flower, Wow!
The first year two stems came up each with a tiny bloom, and this second year each
of the two stems had two blooms; however the two plants flowered in succession,
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