Can one date beauty or plants just when they are ready to take their rightful place in the garden world?
We can in the case of lilies. These lovely, hardy, easy-to-grow plants have come a long way from the species collected in the wild. However, they have had a difficult transition period.
Finally, they have emerged as full-fledged, reliable garden ornaments and are dependable and worthwhile. Largely American, contribution to horticulture. As a garden plant, the lily has come of age.
Strangely enough, even I was not convinced of how desirable they were until a few years ago.
Since lilies grow here in my garden under ideal circumstances—good soil, climate, and expert care – this was no proof for me that they would do so elsewhere.
It was with considerable hesitancy and apprehension, then, that I set out to see lilies as they are grown by others.
Lily Enthusiasts
Near Seattle, Washington, home of the 1954 International Lily Show, I drove up a dusty gravel road to find Cherry Hill—the estate of Mr. and Mrs. M. G. Clark.
I knew them to be lily enthusiasts and had heard that Mrs. Clark had visited some British experts and brought home some of the rare species available over there. I wanted to know what their garden might look like.
Following the long driveway, lined with cherry trees, one comes to the lovely, sprawling home and its rolling lawns.
Suppose one is fortunate to be there on a sunny, blue-skied day in early July as I was. In that case, one is greeted by the unforgettable sight of lilies in all their glory and majesty, blazing and towering in beds and woodland plantings against a foil of species and hybrid rhododendrons and azaleas.
Clarks’ Success
Frankly, I had not believed that lilies could make such a display. Reasonable care and attention are factors in the Clarks’ success; good soil and climate conditions are lath.
The garden is large, and as things go today, it must more or less take care of itself more or less.
It is interesting to find that the lilies more than hold their own. They have become integral to basic landscaping – strong plants, self-perpetuating. I left it alone and liked it.
Clear across the continent, in Red Bank, and I found another garden in New Jersey with a special feature of lilies and more lilies. Again the area is large. It is cared for by the owner and a part-time gardener.
Grass walks, lawns, and lily beds invite the visitor to explore. He is not disappointed, for the best modern garden lilies are being tested here, and their behavior is noted and reported.
Ocean-Side Lilies
On the other coast, in the lovely Palos Verdes, California, gardens of Joseph Szigeti, the famous violinist, some lilies sway in the ocean breeze and drink in the sunshine.
Charles Laugh-ton, the actor, and his wife, the charming Elsa Lanchester, also grow lilies in their ocean-side hideaway garden.
Special Features Of Lilies
There are other gardens that I have yet to see, but of which photographs decorate my workroom here, in Maine and Vermont, in Wisconsin and Texas, that makes a special feature of lilies.
Difficult to grow? Half-hardy? Finicky and particular?
No, all these gardeners tell me they are the easiest plants to handle. Starting with freshly harvested bulbs packed in moisture-retaining containers and shipped directly to the garden, the new hybrid lilies grow “like weeds.”
New Hybrid Lilies
Abroad, too, in many gardens, the new hybrid lilies are making a place for themselves. In New Zealand, at the Canterbury Lily Society’s show, the American lily, Enchantment, won the coveted Jocelyn Deal cup, the premier award.
Exhibited by the Commissioners of Crown Lands, Windsor Great Park, Berks., this same lily won an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.
Letters reach me from Germany, France, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, and Holland, telling me of the success of the hybrid lilies under the widely varying conditions in all these countries.
Improved Cultural Practices
Our garden lilies of today were born in a period of far-reaching changes in cultural practices, techniques, and tools.
New chemicals were discovered to combat pests and diseases, prevent seedlings’ damping-off, control weeds, and stimulate root growth, fertilization, and propagation as they were being developed.
New evaluations were made of cultural practices. Improved, often radically changed, growing and packing methods and materials were adopted.
An improved product evolved, superior because new characteristics, such as hybrid vigor, made it more tolerant to widely varying soil and climatic conditions; better, too, because new methods and materials were found to protect the plants en route from the growers’ fields to the dealers’ storage rooms and your gardens.
Deliveries were timed for optimum results, and, last but not least, gardeners were becoming more and more aware of the simple requirements of the lily: sunshine, rich soil, and perfect drainage.
This change, from an erratic, demanding, and often unmanageable wild plant to a dependable, well-behaved one, happened in a shorter period than any comparable plant Family.
It resulted from years of preparation, long periods of arduous exploration, and many failures and disappointments. Now that the Hattie is over, looking around and surveying what has been achieved is gratifying.
Fine Hybrid Lilies
In 1924, just 30 years ago, Dr. David Griffiths selected and named his now-famous Bellingham Hybrid lilies.
Thirty years ago, the Office of Foreign Plant Introduction of the Bureau of Plant Industry received a small quantity of lily seed from China.
This seed, which proved to be a particularly good strain of Lilium laudanum, became the basis for the fine trumpet lilies now available.
Curiously enough, it is also just 30 years ago that Monsieur Dehras, after many years of fruitless work, obtained the seeds from which much later came the wonderful strains of Aurelian lilies.
The Preston Hybrids also first flowered 30 years ago, as did some of Isabella Preston’s and Dr. Skinner’s fine Canadian-bred introductions.
New Advances In Lilies
Today, hardy garden lilies are freely available – new hybrids in exciting forms and colors, reinvigorated species, and their strong-growing mutations.
We have lilies for summer and fall, greenhouse forcing and outside planting, and garden decoration and cutting. They result from the work of many devoted growers, plant explorers, and botanists.
Now, when distance is no longer a barrier, new advances made in New Zealand or Australia one year can be made available to growers in other countries the next.
Using the latest scientific knowledge of plant breeding, the hybridizers can speed up their work and obtain seeds with a far higher percentage of improvement than was produced by earlier workers’ hit-and-miss methods.
It is strange to note that the lily lagged behind many other garden plants, not in popularity. There has yet to be a more beloved or well-known flower but in actual availability as a good, vigorous garden plant. Compare it with other popular plant families.
As we know them today, the daffodils date from 1887, when those famous varieties, Madame de Graaff and Glory of Leiden, were exhibited in London and received a First Class Certificate from the Royal Horticultural Society.
He said our modern garden tulips may well, from 1899 when the first Darwin tulips were introduced into commerce by Messrs. Krelage & Son of Haarlem, the Netherlands.
Lily’s Coming Of Age
The history of our bearded iris, too, dates from the beginning of our century, while hybrid roses are somewhat, but not much, older.
The first hybrid tea rose, La France originated in 1867; the well-known rambler rose, Crimson Rambler, was introduced into this country in 1895; Dorothy Perkins in 1901.
That lily came of age so recently was a boon to both gardeners and commercial growers. A wider knowledge of genetics and plant physiology, coupled with the development of new tools and techniques in growing, enabled growers to brush aside the cobwebs of superstition and old wives’ tales that had made the lily a reputedly difficult plant to grow.
There was also a sobering influence since the growers could see only too well the grave mistake made by the iris, daffodil rose, and tulip breeders in naming far too wide varieties.
It was not in vain that the leading lily breeders halted the indiscriminate naming and introduction of every slight variant before it had stood the test of time and competition.
The result of their campaign is already noticeable. What is offered front most American sources today is really good.
The hybrid lily then has come of age. It is now a dependable, hardy garden plant of unusual merit—a variety of forms and colors.
The length of the flowering season, extending as it does from May to November, makes it a garden plant to be reckoned with.
Available Selection Of Lilies
The selection available now – whether in the softly colored Aurelian types, the blazing Mid-Century Hybrids, the pure and stately Olympic Hybrids, the Fiestas in their glowing colors, the warm-toned Golden Chalice, or the sparkling Bellinghams – can be counted on for good behavior.
These lilies, though new, are already thoroughly tested under garden conditions. They are exciting. As no other plant can do it, they give character to the summer garden.
Use them by themselves in large beds or combine them with other flowers in the herbaceous border. Their graceful form and colors look well, too, contrasted against evergreen foliage.
What We Can Expect From Lilies
What is ahead of us in lilies?
We may expect variants on the themes we already have, each critically appraised and markedly better than what we have now; new combinations of color and form with still greater tolerance to abuse and still greater vigor, as well as increased inbred resistance to pests and diseases.
We know the material we have to build with, the species that have come to us front the four corners of the world, and their sturdy hybrids already with us.
To bring the golden color of the Aurelians and their hybrid vigor into a lovely species like Lilium curated, L. platyphyllum, or L. speciosum rubrum is well within our reach.
The soft lilac of L. cernuum and the vigor of L. tigrinum may give us a new range of colors and forms.
There are other such combinations already in the making. All American gardeners will welcome them.
44659 by Jan De Graaff