Lilies

From time to time we have grown the odd lily, with mixed results but at the lower end of the achievement spectrum. Mostly they have gone in pots, the only ones in the ground were martagon types and they haven’t done especially well. Slugs have been a big problem but I also think our soil probably sits too wet and too cold in winter to suit lilies.

What made me decide to go about growing lilies more seriously was a visit to Keith Wiley’s Wildside garden on 28/7/2021. He had some clumps of lilies growing in the courtyard garden there that I was mightily taken with. They weren’t labelled and while they appeared to be in the ground I was pretty certain they were in pots and had been plunged into the ground then the pots covered over with gravel.

It took me a little searching to come up with the name Lilium leichtlinii for a magnificent spotted yellow variety and I must have bought bulbs of it in autumn 2021. Interestingly, looking through the pictures again, one of the others he was growing was Lilium ‘Red Velvet’, and though I didn’t put a name to it at the time, it is one I now have.

The 10 Lilium leichtlinii bulbs I bought were planted into a 20L pot and kept in my tunnel over the winter. In spring I kept them under cover until they were two foot or so tall, then sank the pot to about two thirds its depth at the back of the border behind other plants. They performed well, and better still in 2023, by the end of which they were so crowded in the pot that I turned them out and removed enough bulbs to pot up two further 10L pots before putting the main clump of bulbs back in the 20L.

Fired up by my success, I considered getting more lilies and came across Hart’s Nursery. There was no going back and in autumn 2023 I ordered bulbs of five more varieties. To a limited extent I’d been fired up a year earlier because I had planted up three other varieties that I seem to recall were garden centre purchases, very possibly end of season reduced items. Thus in autumn 2023 I had 9 lily varieties in pots in my tunnel, plus the two extra pots of L. leichtlinii.

In the spring of 2024 I kept them in the tunnel until they were nearly too tall to get in the car for ferrying back to the garden. In most cases they were about three feet tall. All were sunk to the full depth of the pot except for L. leichtlinii which I left a little higher as the pot was hidden and I wanted maximum height from it. This is what I grew and how they fared.

Lilium leichtlinii.
This probably has the longest flowering period of them all, starting in early July and going into August. It is now 1.9m tall and has needed a little support to stop the stems toppling too far. That the stems lean out a little is good as it stops the flower heads bunching up too close. The leaves are long and narrow, the flowers smaller than most (9cm) and carried in large numbers on the stems, making for a finer textured plant than many of the varieties.

Lilium ‘Red Velvet’ has similar foliage and flower size to L. leichtlinii but the flowers are held diffrently so it doesn’t simply look like a red leichtlinii. It grew very rigidly upright, causing the flower heads to bunch together in a not altogether pleasing fashion; they would have looked better spaced further apart. It was the earliest to flower, in early July and finished a week short of August. Height 1.4m. (Harts say 1.2m, July-August)

Lilium ‘Anastasia’ was the only variety that wasn’t inclined to grow upright even at the beginning of the season. I ended up putting canes in to support several of the stems as it produces quite a lot of enormous (19cm) flowers on each stem and the weight drags them down still further. Most of the flowers face down. Height 1.6m.

Lilium ‘Robina’ came as massive bulbs which I put straight into a 20L pot. Huge (25cm) flowers which have lasted well, though they have faded to a dull pinkish purple. Well displayed, facing upward and outward. Flowered mid to late July. Height 1.5m. (Harts say 2m + when established, July-August)

Lilium ‘Robert Swanson’ is flowering mid July to early August with 14cm flowers having strongly reflexed petals. Height 1.1m. Flowers mostly face down.

Lilium ‘Purple Prince’ has been very variable in the height produced, with the tallest at 1.6m but others less than 1m. 16cm flowers in early to mid July.

Lilium ‘Largo’ is very similar to ‘Robina’ and I’m not sure how I came to get two so similar. 1.4m tall with 22cm flowers in mid to late July. (Harts say 90-100cm, July August)

Lilium ‘Tigermoon’ is the shortest of the varieties I grew, making only 80cm. Lots of 21cm flowers which face up. Has suffered slug damage, mainly to the buds and flowers, unlike any of the others, though that may be partly due to location. Mid to late July. (Harts say 1.5m when fully established, July-August)

Lilium ‘Tigerwoods’ looked like it was going to stay upright but bent under the weight of its load of 23cm flowers, produced mid to late July. Flowers upward facing until the stems arch outwards. Height 1m. (Harts say 1.2m when established, July-August)

I ordered 5 each of the bulbs I bought from Harts Nursery and potted all into 10L pots except ‘Robina’ which I put into a 20L. I used my usual compost, Melcourt Sylvagrow with 3.5g/L 9 month Osmocote Exact added to it. When I placed the order with Harts I also bought a bottle of Grazers G4 Lily Beetle Concentrate. I think I sprayed three times, it may have been four, at around weekly spacing. I had very little problem with lily beetles so it appeared to be effective.

We have two cats and lily pollen is said to be very toxic to them, so I have been going round every day and pulling the anthers off as soon as the flowers are open enough to get them. That way the anthers are still closed and I avoid getting yellow stained fingers. The whole plant is toxic to cats but ours are sensible enough to not eat the plants and we haven’t had any problems with them.

What I will probably do with the lilies now is to leave them in situ until the leaves start to die off. Then I will cut the stems down and move all the pots back to the tunnel. The soil I dug out is in bags at my allotment so I shall either fill in the holes or replace the pots of lilies with pots of tulips.