Help Your Lilies Bloom Again
The glorious Easter lily that filled my home with a pungent fragrance this year would have found itself atop the compost heap if it weren’t for Deloris, a concerned caller.
A couple of years back, Deloris had been given an Easter lily. Once the blossoms faded, instead of tossing it she chose to coax it into blooming once more.
It worked. Exquisite, white, trumpet flowers filled her windowsill. How simple: Set the plant outside for the summer, bring it in for the winter and, in the spring, a new lily.
But to Deloris’ surprise, what worked the first time did not work the second time around. The following year, instead of pure white flowers, they were orange with spots. According to the experts, this doesn’t happen.
I began digging through a few old bulb books. There was nothing to suggest Easter lilies could turn orange. However, I did run across some interesting facts that might provide an explanation.
There are three types of domestic lilies:
Hybrids: The result of crossing two specific parents. The seed from these lilies can produce numerous variations in height, color and flower shape. If you’re looking for a field of color and you’re not fussy, bulbs produced from hybrids are great buys.
Strain: Within the hybrids, hybridizers will select flowers of a particular color hue and shape which they call a strain. Purchasing lilies by strains is a wise investment.
Clone: Once in a while you will find one lily that stands out above the rest because of color, height, shape and vitality. These lilies are propagated vegetatively from scales of the original lily. Every lily thereafter will be exactly like the first lily - a clone. These lilies can be very expensive.
The Easter lily is a Japanese hybrid - Lilium longiflorum - meaning it has two parents with at least six different siblings (varieties). My guess is that Deloris’ lily bulb may have been injured somehow over the years and has perhaps reverted to one of the ancestors.
Injury to any lily bulb can result from:
Poor drainage. Lilies must have excellent drainage, especially during the winter months.
Roots and bulb may have been exposed to high temperatures. The bulb needs to be kept cool while the plant basks in sunlight.
The wrong pH (acid or alkaline soil). Different lilies have different pH requirements.
Being left out of the ground or drying out. Lily bulbs do not go completely dormant like many other bulbs, so they shouldn’t be left out of the ground for any length of time. They should be stored in a cool damp place, bagged in dampened peat moss.
The Easter lily is not one of the lilies that is hardy for our area. You can try planting it, but the chances of it surviving are slim. The best thing to do is treat it like a houseplant. After the blossoms have withered, set it in a sunny window and keep it moist. Around the first of June, plant the lily outside, pot and all. Toward the end of August, the leaves will begin yellowing. Withhold the water. After the stem dries up, store the pot in a cool place, watering now and then (never let the bulb completely dry out).
In October, repot the bulb and set it in a very cool spot (not freezing) until roots have formed. Bring it into the bright light. Keep it watered and fertilized … and hope.
If you would like to learn more about lilies or any other bulb, join the WSU Master Gardeners, Thursday, from 7 to 9 p.m. for the last lecture of the spring gardening series - “Bulbs for All Seasons.”
Pre-register by calling the extension office, 533-2048.