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Making It Grow! News Articles

June 11, 2005

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Rivers are spilling over their banks, and mothers are pulling their hair as the first weeks of summer vacation have seen rain, rain, and more rain. After the many droughts of past years, not many of us are complaining about the weather. Too much water always beats too little water for any gardeing season.

Question: I love the colors and splash of daylilies in the garden, but I'd like to grow flowers I could cut and take to friends. Are other lilies easy to grow in South Carolina? I'd appreciate your suggestions.

Answer: Lilies are a mainstay of the cut flower industry, and home gardeners get to cash in on the research that constantly produces new and hardier varieties. Asiatic lilies are the earliest bloomers, usually beginning in May, and can be purchased in collections at very reasonable prices. With larger and often highly fragrant flowers, the Oriental lilies carry the season through September, and carry a larger price tag, too. But again, if you begin looking at different catalogues, you may find a collection of "unnamed varieties" that will give you just as much beauty for a smaller investment.

Unlike daffodils and tulips, lilies do not have a protective layer over the actual bulb itself and they never go completely dormant. It is important that you treat lily bulbs like perishable items and plant them as soon as they arrive. You can order bulbs in the fall or the spring, but you should have the ground prepared for them before they show up on your doorstep.Plant them immediately or follow cold storage directions that accompany your shipment.

Drainage and sunlight are the two most important variables that will give you success. Soils that stay wet will promote all sorts of nasty rot problems and destroy your bulbs. If you have a heavy clay soil, you'll need to make a raised bed with lots of composted bark or other organic material worked in at least a foot deep. Even in well-drained gardens, the addition of compost will increase the moisture holding capacity of your soil without making it soggy. While you are preparing the bed, you can work in some triple phosphate or bone meal; all bulbs have heavy requirements of phosphorus for flower bud formation. If you haven't soil tested recently, go ahead and take the sample to your local county extension office. Lilies perform best with a pH near 6, and lime, like phosphorus, gives much better results when worked into the soil before planting.

Choose an area that gets at least six, preferably eight hours of sun. Light, high, shade can be beneficial to lilies in the hotter areas of our state. A mulch is critical as these beauties like cool feet. It is best, as always, to water early in the morning and avoid overhead watering if possible. After your lilies blooms, fertilize with a slow-release formula of 10-10-10; 2 pounds per 100 square feet.

When you cut lilies, unlike with other bulbs, you are removing their leaves. Don't cut the stems any longer than you need for those bouquets you are sharing with friends. Bulbs need to replenish themselves after giving us those glorious blooms and the leaves are the source of that energy. Your friends will thank you if you remove the pollen from the male flower parts in the open blossoms. Lily pollen is dark and stains clothes and tablecloths, not to mention noses that can't resist getting a closer sniff of that fragrance. Just pinch the ends off those stamens as the flowers open and you are still in your gardening garb. Remember, too, that some people, are sensitive to perfumes of all kinds, and should only receive non-fragrant flowers.