Love Your Lilies! Plant now for years of beauty and fragrance

The intoxicating fragrance of lilies makes them the queen of the summer landscape. The wonderful aroma hangs in the air while walking garden paths in the late afternoon.

Garden obsessions are so much fun and lilies have captured my heart.

This is the time to plant them. They can be found at local nurseries in one-gallon pots and as bulbs too. If you’re looking for a specific cultivar, there are lots of online sources.

There are a wide range of plants and bulbs for the garden including Asiatic hybrids, Martagon lilies, Trumpet and Aurelian varieties, Oriental hybrids and more. Each one will bloom at a different time in the summer.

Planting the bulbs is easy, but like most plants, they need rich, well-drained soil.

Adding organic matter like compost to the planting hole will assure long life for these perennial plants, which will return season after season.

Lilies love full sun but will do their thing in part sun too. Mine get about six hours and produce plenty of flowers.‘Stargazer’ is one of the most popular lilies with its combination of pink, red and white petals along with a strong perfume in mid-summer. ‘Casa Blanca’ has pure white blooms and heady fragrance. Heirlooms like ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Golden Splendor’ are great choices too.

I’ve never met a lily I didn’t like, so the garden is filled with downward looking tiger lilies and dwarf, upward facing orange Asiatic hybrids along with a host of others.

Since the deer love them, they all grow in the protection of the fenced in vegetable garden.

The bulbs are planted anywhere from about six to eight inches deep. A good rule of thumb is to plant them three times as deep as the bulb itself, adding a little organic fertilizer like Bulbtone will help too.

As the world’s cheapest gardener, one trick I use is to wait until the potted lilies are no longer blooming at the garden center. They are hard to sell without the spectacular flowers and are relegated to the bargain bin. That’s when I swoop in.

These plants won’t bloom until next season, but I can wait. Last year’s batch are emerging right now and some will be surprises, as their plant tags were missing when they were purchased.

I’ve been working with Flowerbulbs.com for years to spread the word about the joy of planting bulbs. They don’t sell bulbs, they encourage gardeners to plant them and that’s my message too. Check out their site for lots of great planting ideas.

Planting lilies now is something that will pay off this summer with their beauty and fragrance, which will be enjoyed for years to come.