Last year we asked for your ideas as we considered whether or not we'd keep printing an annual catalog. We received a flood of responses, a resounding "Keep the catalogs coming!" The consensus is that while we all enjoy the convenience of a website, it's a complementary experience rather than a replacement for a permenant, printed catalog. So, at your request, the Fall 2012, Spring 2013 is being distributed!

Catherine van der Salm creates our catalog each July, and this is her 16th! In the early years of our retail business (we were originally wholesale only), she was the voice on the phone, familiar to many of you. Now she juggles the happy demands of a busy family life and her professional singing career, and still takes the time to translate my photos, field notes, and descriptions into a new catalog.

You spoke, we listened, and Catherine agreed... and we are delighted to share our new catalog with you (which will be distributed as this website is updated).

Here you will find lilies to please every palate, including many of our own hybrids that span the spectrum of flower size, color, plantheight, shape, and form. Our own unique Lily Garden creations are marked "" and are Judith's handiwork, born and bred on our farm!

All our lilies have been tested and selected specifically with the garden in mind — to be strong, persistent, disease-resistant, and above all, beautiful!

The sequence of bloom may help you select lilies for your garden. The Asiatics begin the season, followed by the Trumpet and Aurelian hybrids, then come the "Orienpets", and the Orientals provide the grand finale.

Hardy lily bulbs will return year after year with only the simplest maintenance.   Each year you can expect more and more flowers to grace your garden with color, longevity, fragrance, and beautiful form. 

Be sure to check this website for after-harvest updates, web-only varieties, and the latest treasures for connoisseurs!

Hummingbirds love lilies!

We now offer a special
Hummingbird Collection.

Dear Friends,

I began working as geneticist at Oregon Bulb Farms in September 1971, and it's been a continuing pleasure to work with, to grow, and to study lilies for over 40 years! It is fascinating and humbling to hybridize lilies — with every cross comes some new wrinkle to tell me that there's still more to learn and another generation essential to figuring ot those elusive genes!

This winter I began working with a tiny camera that fits into my microscope and displays its image on my computer screen. Pollen shapes, sizes, and germination patterns, other cell sizes, and actual chromosome counts are useful guides in planning crosses and interpreting the results. After 40 years of making drawings and extensive notes on pollen shape, size, and germination, as well as bud and root-tip chromosome squashes, it is such fun to be able to show (and share by email) just what I see! As youcan see, it's not hard to "read" the results of many of these slides!

What's cooking Grandma Judith's kitchen? It's a little different than most, with its cupboards of tissue culture and microstaining chemicals, its microscopes, its summertime sea of pollen samples and slides, and its year-round test tubes started from bits of buds, scales, and even leaf axls. Then there's the refrigerator, filled with bottles of meiotic buds and embalmed root tips, for chromosome study! Granddaughter Juliana is learning about pollen germination, and you can see in the photo what she is seeing on the computer monitor.