If you don't mind starting with more common varieties first, you can often find an assortment of inexpensive lily bulbs for spring planting available at places like Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. These are usually not premium grade bulbs so the plants may start out small and with a limited number of first year blooms. But they will grow on to become larger clumps and with more flowers as the years go on.

Try Menard's too, if you have one near you.

You'll find a bigger selection just about everywhere, in the fall, which is the best time to plant lilies. If you buy in spring at stores such as are listed above, buy early. They tend to dry out in the indoor store environment. Lilies are never truly dormant, unlike bulbs like tulips. They dry out, they suffer. After you buy them, keep them cool, like in a garage, but protected from freezing.

I'd disagree with fall being the "best" time. Either spring or fall works equally as well but it does depend on your garden soil. Some spring soils stay too wet and too cool to plant lilies early enough to produce ideal first season growth and flowering. The old recommendation to plant lilies in fall was because the bulbs are never fully dormant and could dry out or deteriorate in improper storage. But most commercial lily growers have perfected the cold storage needed to be able to hold these bulbs for spring planting. And the majority of summer flowering bulbs - like lilies - are usually offered for sale in spring.

And IME, fall has a pretty slim selection of bulbs available as well, as typically they are much later to harvest than other, often fall planted bulbs, due to the time needed for the foliage to dry and ripen fully before collecting. This is especially true for Orientals or orinpets which may not even bloom until August. There are several major commericial lily growers in my area (B&D Lilies, The Lily Pad, The Lily Garden) and they offer their largest selection in early spring.

If it is too early for you to be able to plant outdoors or you have to wait until your soils dry and warm before planting, pot up spring purchased lilies in containers. Keep the potting medium barely moist and bulbs cool but above freezing and then move outdoors when appropriate.

Thank you!! I don't mind starting with more common ones, I just want some color in the gardens while I wait to see if the seeds take off or not. From my understanding, it can take 3 years to get a bloom of a lily planted by seed... I am excited to watch the seeds take off but at the same time, I want to get some color in there this summer!! I do have a Menards here, I actually worked there up until last Wednesday. I got a new job and left there. They didn't have many choices in the fall at all. All they had Lily wise was 4 different types of asiatic lilies. There was only 1 bulb in each package so I just bought 1 to see if it'd grow. I will get out and check all the places around here in the spring to see whats available! Thanks so much for the advice!!

Randi

And may I ask you to join the rest of the seasoned forum users, and please provide a descriptive subject for the topics you begin.

Please consider that you are asking for free help.
Just saying "Help?", "Qestion?", "Problem" or some such is really being discourteous. People with the right or best answers don't always have the time to search through ambiguous subject lines like this. You also give the feeling that you have no time to construct a meaningful question. Therefore, don't expect anything other than answers in kind.

Fortunately, there are a lot of forgiving members here, as evidenced by the above responses.

I don't mean this to be chastising at all, merely a learning experience - for all. May I point out the instructions for posting at the bottom of every Forum page. It reinforces my plea here. Speaking from a lost generation, it is only appropriate, courteous, fitting and respectful to play by the rules and realize of the consequences of your actions, however small they are.

Leftwood,
I am truly sorry for wasting your time. I have yet to have this problem in other forums and your reply is a bit discouraging. Maybe this should have been one sent by PM so you don't discourage other newbies from wanting to use this forum. If I do post any more questions on the lily forum and thats an IF, I will try to be more descriptive. But as of right now, I highly doubt I will ask for help on this forum.

Sorry again to waste your time...

I see my point was lost. Quoted:
I don't mean this to be chastising at all, merely a learning experience - for all.

And I am sorry to realize that I am the one who is out of place here. As I am not employed by GardenWeb, asking anyone to follow GardeWeb's own instructions is out of line in this day and age. I am from another generation that believes otherwise, and so I must acquiesce. Please do not hesitate to come to this forum as I am the one who will not be here.

My apologies to all who have taken offense.

Leftwood,
I "get your point" and yet I don't... I understand, you want me to be more descriptive in my subject lines. And I apologize fot that. The part that I don't understand is if I was wasting your time, then why did you take the time to reply on it. You could have realized I wasted your time and moved on. You took the time to reply though. I did apologize. I am new to all this, I guess this is just another learning experience. We are both adults here so lwets just put this aside, take what we learned from it, and move on. I came to GW for all the great friendships and shared passions that I have experienced do far. I will not leave GW unless asked too. I will keep making posts, but I will be more descriptive. You have no reason to leave either. I took your reply and blew it up out of proportion as I was upset. I'm over it and moving on. Hope and pray you can do the same. Have a Blessed day!

Randi

I am still learning and I an ALWAYS on here in BETWEEN the life going on in my house.

Randi - A big sigh of relief here! (and a big smile)
--- You are now a breath of fresh air!

I, too, have had a bad week, and it seemed everyone I met had the ""gimme gimme, it's never my fault, I don't care about anyone but me" attitude. Erroneously matching you to the profile, you were an opportune outlet for my disgust.

I did look to see when you registered, and thought it was over a year ago, when actually it's been four months. Knowing from many experiences in real life that these "me me" people are difficult to get through to, I added the "wasting time" scenario as reinforcement. It is one of the few ideas that these people readily understand. They would never think ahead so far as to wonder: "then, why is he wasting his time?" (Another testimonial that you are not one of them.) The time factor has been brought up by others in the forums, and hoped it would fall on many other needy ears. In fact, this is the first time I have ever said boo on the subject. Although in ideological terms I meant everything I said, I regret that it all came out pouring now to an undeserving soul.

I feel like we should be hugging.
God's Peace,
Rick

Rick,
Hugs to you! (((@@))) Hope you have a Blessed day!

Randi