For centuries, lilies have had a strong appeal for gardeners, painters, sculptors, and poets, and the reasons are easy to understand. Their broad range of color and form has made them one of the most striking and attractive groups of flowers.
All colors except blue are to be found among the numerous hybrids and species. They vary in form from superbly-chiseled trumpets to pleasing bowl-shaped types, and there are reflexed kinds, such as the Turk’s cap.
Likewise, they range in size from dainty blooms an inch or so in diameter to huge flowers on stems eight to ten feet tall. In addition, many Miles have an especially pleasing fragrance.
Why, then, you may ask, have not lilies achieved the wide popularity of roses, iris, and a host of other flowers? The answer is that many of the species have proven difficult to grow.
They have resented being lifted and transported to climatic and soil conditions different from their natural habitat.
Consequently, many gardeners have struggled with lilies only to find they sulk and soon disappear.
The Disease Problem
Others have been subject to two serious diseases, virus and basal rot, which have discouraged the lily and also the grower, or perhaps I should say, the would-be grower.
Although some species have been blessed with disease resistance and can grow anywhere, they have generally bore flowers in shades of orange—a color that does not always blend well with other flowers in the garden.
These factors challenged those who loved lilies and wanted to see them grown and enjoyed by everyone. Although nature had not combined the qualities of the lily as a man would have them, the individual qualities were present.
These were—color, a form of a flower, the form of the plant, variation in height, fragrance, resistance to disease, and ability to grow under any conditions.
All that remained was to re-combine these characteristics to produce the ideal lily with the desired color, form, and size, which can grow anywhere.
Quite an order, you say, but the challenge to the lily enthusiast was great. As a result, many promising lilies are on the market today, and more are appearing yearly.
The hybridists have not produced the ideal lily yet and probably never will. Still, enough progress has been made so that even the darkest amateur need no longer denies himself the enjoyment of beautiful lilies in his garden.
Best Time To Plant Lilies
The best time of the year to plant lilies is in the late fall after they have reached their full growth for the season and have become somewhat dormant.
Because lilies never become completely dormant as tulips do, they must never be allowed to dry out.
The bulbs usually come packed in damp peat moss in polyethylene bags and should be planted as soon as possible.
The only exceptions to the fall planting are the madonna lilies which should be planted in August, and the meadow lily (L. canadense), which is best transplanted after blooming or about the middle of July, if available.
Bulbs are planted so that the tops are 4” to 6” inches under the surface, except for the madonna and the testaceum lilies, which should be set only two inches deep.
Most lilies do best in full sunlight. If planted in partial shade, they always lean toward the light, and the stems tend to be weak. However, L. canadense is often found growing wild in light woods.
Drainage Is Vital
For best results with lilies, the soil should be well-drained, and good drainage is a must for the difficult ones.
Light, sandy soil is best suited to them, but most of the lilies mentioned above will grow in almost any type of soil.
In addition, most lilies tolerate a wide variation in acidity or soil pH. In other words, any ordinary good garden soil is satisfactory.
Two applications per year of three pounds of a 10-10-10 fertilizer per 100 square feet will keep them growing well. One application should be made in early spring and the second in the middle of July.
Lilies seem to like cool soil and respond well to mulching. Any type of mulch is satisfactory, but my favorite is sawdust, the coarse variety from saws used for sawing logs into boards.
Since sawdust contains no nitrogen, it must be supplied, or the bacteria will take up nitrogen from the soil and rob the lilies.
I have found that one small handful of ammonium nitrate per bushel of sawdust is sufficient. One of the best things about such a mulch is that it keeps the weeds down.
Control of Diseases
Not many insects trouble lilies, aphids being the only common ones. These may be controlled easily with malathion or lindane.
Leafhoppers, which sometimes attack the buds before they open, are controlled with malathion or DDT.
Occasionally a borer gets into a stem in early summer near the ground, and the stem then breaks.
Borers should be crushed when found. A thorough clean-up program in the fall will also help to keep them to a minimum.
The control of diseases is a much more difficult matter. It is impossible to do anything about virus disease once it affects a lily.
All the easily susceptible lilies should be planted where they are isolated from all other lilies and tulips since the same virus diseases infect both lilies and tulips.
Most of the varieties discussed above are either immune to the virus or unaffected, but the latter may carry the virus to susceptible varieties.
The virus is carried only by aphids, so strict control of them will prevent the spread of the virus.
Basal Rot
Basal rot is a disease that causes the roots to rot off at the base of the bulbs. No sure cure is known, but it is hoped that a fungicide will be found to eradicate rot.
The organism remains in the soil for some time after the bulb is destroyed, so a new bulb should not be planted where the rot has been present.
When a bulb becomes infected, the leaves suddenly turn yellow and drop off. This happens much too frequently with L. atratum and L speciosum. The plant may come up the following year, but it very seldom blooms again.
Botrytis
Botrytis is a fungus disease that attacks the leaves, being most severe on madonna lilies, many times destroying the leaves before the plant finishes blooming. This seldom infects the bulb and may be controlled by spraying every ten days to two weeks with Bordeaux Mixture.
One word of caution, use your lilies for cutting flowers if you wish – but never cut more than one-half of the stem with the flower.
The plant depends on the leaves left after blooming to increase the size of the bulb, and so produce more flowers for the next year.
Most of the varieties recommended here will give little or no trouble. However, after you have grown these successfully, I am sure that you will not be satisfied until you have tried some of the more difficult ones—they are both a challenge and a source of pleasure and satisfaction.
And with increasing success with lilies, you will someday want to grow them from seed. But that is another story.
44659 by Raymond B. Crawford