Category Archives: Lilies

Lilies — Radiant Stars All Summer Long

Lilies are truly the stars of the summer garden, spangling their luminous, astral-shaped flowers across beds and borders. Whether planted in sun or part-shade, Lilies add reliable interest and characteristic grace to gardens during the hotter months of the year. Their diverse colors and forms, coupled with exquisite fragrances, make them a stellar selection for every garden.

We offer an array of Lilies including Asiatic, Oriental, and Species types plus many interdivisional hybrids. Planting various kinds guarantees a succession of spectacular blooms throughout the summer. Enjoy them outdoors as colorful highlights in your borders or bring cuttings indoors to fill vases and urns galore.

Scroll below for a selection of our individual Lilies and multicolored mixes, presented here in order of blossom time to help you create a pageant of blooms throughout the summer months.

June to July:
Lilies for Early Summer Sparkle

Start the summer with Asiatic Lilies, which are the earliest of our Lily varieties to come into bloom. Colors range from the softest pastels to fiery reds and oranges that practically ignite when the sun hits them. Seldom reaching above 3’ tall, the sturdy plants never need staking and are perfect for flower arrangements because of their straight stems and heavy bud count. When sited in a sunny, well-drained garden bed, these Lilies will put on a glorious show for years.

Asiatic Lily (Strawberries & Cream Lilium Mix)

This mix of pink and white Asiatic Lily hybrids offers a refreshing color palette at the onset of warm days in the garden.

Longiflorum-Asiatic Hybrid Lily (Lilium ‘Eyeliner’)

The stunning white blossoms of this cross between an Asiatic Lily and the Easter Lily (Lilium longiflorum) are delicately outlined in purple-black.

Asiatic Lily (Tropical Tones Lily Quintet)

With bright hues ranging from sunny yellow to deep reddish-orange, this sultry mix of five compact Asiatic Lilies gestures toward the hotter days to come.

July to August:
Lilies for Midsummer Magic

Orienpet and Oriental Lilies grace the garden when summer is at its peak. Orienpets, a cross between Oriental and Trumpet Lilies, bloom about two weeks earlier than Oriental Lilies. Both types are notable for their large flowers, heady perfumes, and strong stems of varying heights.

Orienpet Lily (Lilium ‘Silk Road’)

This Orienpet Lily features intoxicatingly fragrant 8” flowers, which are borne on spires up to 2′ across for longer than you thought possible.

Orienpet Lily (Lilium ‘Conca d’Or’)

The creamy yellow blossoms of this Orienpet, with centers of pure gold, mimic the sunshine that floods the midsummer garden.

Oriental Lily (Lilium ‘Stargazer’)

A bright star of the garden as well as the florist’s trade, ‘Stargazer’ has upward-facing, crimson and pink blooms edged with pure white.

August to September:
Lilies to Make Summer Linger

Oriental and Species Lilies continue the vibrant show, extending the feel of summer into early fall. These late-blooming varieties sport gracefully recurved, pendent flowers that are as fascinating for their form as for their color and fragrance. The plants are exceptionally vigorous, too, with trusses of blossoms growing on stems from 4’ to 7’ tall. Plant some and let your summer display go out with a bang.

Oriental Lily (Lilium ‘Black Beauty’)

This variety of Oriental Lily can produce 20 to 50 flowers on a dizzyingly tall plant. The deep crimson flowers, with white edges and central green stars, are stunning following the summer-long progression of brightly colored blooms.

Species Lily (Lilium speciosum ‘Uchida’)

Introduced from Japan, this Species Lily dangles spotted, pink-and-white blossoms that are delightfully spicy in fragrance.

Species Lily (Lilium speciosum rubrum)

This is the last of the Lilies in our list to flower and, to our noses at least, is also among the most fragrant. Our gardens would not be complete without it.

 

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Do You Know Your Lily Varieties?

Lilies are one of the truly great garden plants for their flower forms, diversity, extended season of bloom, graceful stature, and reliable disposition. Their bulbs can be planted in spring for bloom the same year, or in fall for bloom the following year.

The sequence of bloom begins in early summer with the colorful Asiatics, Martagon Lilies (also called Turk’s Cap Lilies), and then continues until late summer with other Species Lilies and three tall, fragrant groups: Orientals, Orienpets (hybrids between Orientals and Trumpets), and Trumpets.

Here’s a primer to help familiarize you with the different types:

redtwin
Asiatic Lily ‘Red Twin’®: The large, 7″ salsa red double blooms of this Asiatic variety add fire to the summer border. Note the elegantly formed inner bloom with narrow reflexed petals.

Asiatic Lilies

Asiatic Lilies are early-blooming, colorful, and vigorous. Colors range from the softest pastels to fiery reds and oranges that practically ignite in the sun. Blooms vary from simple open bowls to exquisite recurved flowers. Their straight stems and high bud count make them superb cut flowers.

Lilium ‘Star Gazer’: When Leslie Woodriff, a Lily breeder in California, created 'Star Gazer' a quarter of a century ago, it instantly set a new standard for Oriental Lilies. This fragrant hybrid grew beautifully in the average garden, and its large, upfacing blooms on strong stems were outstanding as cut flowers.
Oriental Lily ‘Star Gazer’: When Leslie Woodriff, a Lily breeder in California, created ‘Star Gazer’ a quarter of a century ago, it instantly set a new standard for Oriental Lilies. This fragrant hybrid grew beautifully in the average garden, and its large, upfacing blooms on strong stems were outstanding as cut flowers.

Oriental Lilies

Oriental Lilies are best known for their huge flowers and intense perfume. They come in a wide variety of heights, forms, and colors, and put on a magnificent, late-summer show.

Trumpet Lily ‘Ice Caves’: An abundance of big white blooms with frosty green throats are presented on long graceful stems. The flowers appear midsummer on statuesque plants about 5′ tall, and they produce a delightful fragrance.

Trumpet Lilies

As the name might suggest, these Lilies have lovely, trumpet-shaped flowers borne on long graceful stems. Their intoxicating scent can perfume an entire garden.

‘Silk Road’: Here is an Orienpet Lily with huge, intoxicatingly fragrant 8″ flowers that are borne on spires up to 2′ across for longer than you thought possible. It’s the winner of the North American Lily Society's popularity poll for 4 straight years.
Orienpet Lily ‘Silk Road’: Here is an Orienpet Lily with huge, intoxicatingly fragrant 8″ flowers that are borne on spires up to 2′ across for longer than you thought possible. It’s the winner of the North American Lily Society’s popularity poll for 4 straight years.

Orienpet Lilies

Orienpet Lilies are crosses between Oriental and Trumpet Lilies. They combine the best features of both groups — fragrance, large flowers, and sturdy garden performance — and they bloom about 2 weeks earlier than Orientals.

Lilium langkongense: These recurved, lavender-pink bells possess an exquisite charm and grace. They deepen in color as they age and are heavily spotted in maroon. This fragrant Species Lily comes from the mountainous regions of southwestern China, and prefers regular moisture, well-drained soil, and a bit of shade in the heat of the day.]
Species Lily langkongense: These recurved, lavender-pink bells possess an exquisite charm and grace. They deepen in color as they age and are heavily spotted in maroon. This fragrant Species Lily comes from the mountainous regions of southwestern China, and prefers regular moisture, well-drained soil, and a bit of shade in the heat of the day.

Species Lilies

Delicate and graceful Species Lilies carry their flowers on candelabra-shaped stems, and are generally more tolerant of shade. Their elegant show improves with each passing year. They combine well with perennials and annuals in a mixed border.

Claude Shride
Martagon Lily ‘Claude Shride’: A cherished classic from the 1970s, this Martagon (Turkscap) hybrid displays a tall candelabra of downward-facing, recurved, dark red blossoms highlighted with yellow-orange spots. Because the small, waxy flowers will bloom in light shade, highlight this fine variety with Hostas and other woodlanders.

Martagon Lilies

A subgroup of Species Lilies also known as ‘Turk’s Caps,’ Martagons are lovely and elegant plants whose graceful, willowy stature and shapely flowers are entirely captivating and perfectly magical in the lightly shaded nooks they seem to prefer. Traditionally this species has been known to be tricky to keep happy since it is slow to establish, but newer hybrids take hold more quickly.

Lily leaf beetle

Battling the Lily Leaf Beetle

Gardeners in the Northeast must be on the lookout for the Lily leaf beetle, which feeds on Lily foliage, buds, and flowers in both its larval and adult form. Luckily, both life stages are easily recognized: the adult is slightly less than ½” long, with a brilliant scarlet body and black head and appendages. The larvae look a bit like lumpy slugs but are orange, brown, or greenish yellow with black heads; they pile their black excrement on their backs as they feed. (Gross, right?) From March through June, look on the undersides of the leaves for the orange eggs and destroy them. Handpicking works if only a few plants are present; for a larger planting, neem products are effective for young larvae and will deter adults, and insecticides containing spinosad will control the insect (but avoid using these when bees are active). Occasionally, aphids will infect Lilies with Lily mosaic virus, which results in yellow streaking or mottling of the leaves; this virus is mainly problematic in the species. Watch for aphids and rinse off with a forceful water spray.