A Complete Guide to the Most Magnificent Bulb of the Summer Garden
Ask a gardener to name a flower and there is a reasonable chance they will say rose. Ask them to name the most magnificent flower in their garden in July and there is an equally reasonable chance they will say lily. There is something about the lily in full flower — the scale of the trumpet, the precision of the recurved petals, the extraordinary fragrance that fills an entire garden from a single stem on a still summer evening — that places it in a category apart from other summer-flowering plants. Other flowers are beautiful. The lily, at its best, is transcendent.
It is also, in certain quarters, considered difficult. The reputation is partly deserved and partly the consequence of people growing the wrong lilies in the wrong conditions and drawing overly general conclusions from the failure. The truth is that the lily family encompasses plants of wildly different constitutions — from the lily beetle-plagued, stem-rooting, acid-loving Asiatics to the virtually indestructible martagon, which will naturalise in dry shade under beech trees and ask for almost nothing in return. To say that lilies are difficult is like saying that roses are thorny: technically accurate in some cases, entirely misleading as a general characterisation.
The Lily and Human History
The relationship between the human species and the genus Lilium is one of the longest and most richly documented in the history of plants and people. Lilies appear in the archaeological record of the ancient Mediterranean civilisations — Minoan frescoes at Knossos depict what appear to be Lilium candidum, the Madonna lily, with recognisable accuracy. Egyptian tomb paintings include lily-like flowers. The Song of Solomon, whose date is debated but whose antiquity is not, opens with imagery of lilies used as the highest available comparison for beauty.
The Madonna lily (Lilium candidum) is the species most deeply woven into Western cultural history. Its cultivation around the Mediterranean basin is demonstrably ancient, and by the medieval period it had acquired such deep associations with purity and divine favour that it had become the defining symbol of the Virgin Mary — and, by extension, of virginity, innocence and the sacred. It appears in thousands of Annunciation paintings, almost always held by the Angel Gabriel or standing in a vase beside the Virgin, its white flowers and golden anthers rendered with a specificity that tells us the medieval painters knew the plant intimately from life. The name Madonna lily is Victorian in coinage but the association it commemorates is centuries older.
The lily’s cultural presence in East Asia is equally profound. In China and Japan, several native lily species — Lilium longiflorum, L. speciosum, L. auratum, L. lancifolium — have been cultivated and revered for centuries, both for ornamental and medicinal purposes. The bulbs of several species are edible and are used in Chinese cooking to this day. The Japanese tradition of viewing wild lilies in their natural mountain habitat — particularly Lilium auratum, the golden-rayed lily of Japan — carries the same cultural weight as the spring cherry blossom viewing tradition.
The explosion of lily diversity in Western gardens is largely a nineteenth and early twentieth-century phenomenon, driven by the efforts of plant hunters working in China, Japan and North America. Ernest Henry Wilson — known as ‘Chinese’ Wilson — introduced Lilium regale from a remote river gorge in Sichuan in 1910, an introduction that became one of the most significant in the history of horticulture. Wilson’s discovery of L. regale growing wild in enormous drifts on steep valley sides, and his subsequent near-fatal accident in the same gorge — a rock fall broke his leg badly enough to leave him with what his contemporaries diplomatically called his ‘lily limp’ for the rest of his life — is one of the most dramatic episodes in the whole story of plant hunting.
Understanding Lily Classification
The genus Lilium is formally divided into nine divisions by the Royal Horticultural Society, based on flower form, flowering time and genetic ancestry. For the garden grower, the most practically important divisions are the following.
Division I: Asiatic Hybrids. The most widely grown and most widely available lilies in commerce. Asiatic hybrids flower in June and July, are available in an enormous range of colours from white through yellow, orange, pink and red to the deepest near-black, are compact enough for container growing, and are reliably hardy. They are also, unfortunately, the least fragrant of the major divisions — the vast majority of Asiatic hybrids have little or no scent, a fact that surprises many buyers who associate all lilies with fragrance. They are, however, exceptionally floriferous, easy to grow, highly resistant to virus, and available in upward-facing, outward-facing and pendant-flower forms. The upward-facing forms, which hold their blooms to the sky like cups, are particularly prone to catching rain and filling with water, which damages the flowers; the pendant and outward-facing forms are generally more practical for garden planting.
Division II: Martagon Hybrids. Derived from Lilium martagon and L. hansonii, this division comprises tall, elegant plants with pendant, turk’s-cap flowers — small, strongly recurved blooms with reflexed petals — carried in large numbers on tall stems. They are among the most reliably hardy and long-lived of all lilies, very tolerant of shade and dry conditions, and capable of naturalising in woodland or under trees in a way that few other lilies can manage. Fragrance ranges from pleasant to powerful.
Division IV: American Hybrids. Derived from North American species including L. pardalinum, L. columbianum and others. They prefer moist, humus-rich, acid soil and partial shade, and they reward these specific conditions with extraordinary naturalising vigour — mature clumps can produce dozens of flowering stems annually. Less commonly grown in Britain than in their homeland but increasingly available and worth seeking out.
Division V: Longiflorum Hybrids. Derived from Lilium longiflorum, the Easter lily — long-tubed, pure white, intensely fragrant flowers on tall stems. Widely grown as a cut flower and as a pot plant for Easter decoration, longiflorum hybrids are less reliably hardy outdoors in Britain than the Asiatics or martagon hybrids, but they excel under cool glass and in sheltered borders.
Division VI: Trumpet and Aurelian Hybrids. Among the most magnificent of all garden plants, Trumpet lilies bear large, trumpet-shaped flowers — outward-facing or upward-facing — in white, yellow, pink and apricot, with powerful fragrance. They flower in July and August, are tall (often exceeding 1.5 metres), and are reliably perennial in well-drained soil. The Aurelian hybrids, which include sunburst and bowl-shaped flower forms as well as the classic trumpet, extend the range further. This is the division from which many of the most celebrated named varieties derive.
Division VII: Oriental Hybrids. The great scented lilies of late summer — Orientals flower from July to September and produce some of the largest and most spectacular flowers in the genus, often with extraordinary fragrance. They require acid soil, are more demanding in cultivation than most other divisions, and are susceptible to virus. But a well-grown Oriental lily in August — enormous blooms of white, pink or deep crimson, perfuming an entire garden — is among the most intensely beautiful plants in cultivation. Many of the most famous named lily varieties — ‘Casa Blanca’, ‘Stargazer’, ‘Black Beauty’ — are Orientals or Oriental hybrids.
Division VIII: Other Hybrids. This division encompasses inter-divisional crosses, of which the most practically significant are the OT hybrids (Oriental x Trumpet crosses, sometimes called Orienpets). OT hybrids combine the flower size and fragrance of the Oriental with the hardiness and vigour of the Trumpet, producing large, robust, reliably perennial plants that are widely regarded as among the finest available for garden growing. ‘Black Beauty’, ‘Scheherazade’, ‘Conca D’Or’ and ‘Lake Tahoe’ are among the best-known.
Division IX: Species. The wild species — over one hundred in total — vary enormously in garden character and cultivation requirements, from the almost embarrassingly easy Lilium martagon to the fastidiously demanding L. auratum. Several species are of exceptional garden merit and are addressed individually below.
The Essential Varieties: Asiatic Hybrids
‘Tiny series’ are dwarf Asiatics bred for container growing — compact plants of 30 to 50cm carrying large, upward-facing flowers above neat foliage. ‘Tiny Bee’ is yellow, ‘Tiny Ghost’ is near-black maroon, ‘Tiny Padhye’ is a warm orange-pink. Excellent for pots and the front of borders.
‘Landini’ is among the finest dark Asiatics — deep, velvety near-black maroon flowers on stems of 80 to 90cm, outstanding as a cut flower and particularly effective in border combinations with dark foliage plants.
‘Matrix’ bears large, upward-facing flowers in a rich orange-red on tall, robust stems. One of the most reliably vigorous and free-flowering of all Asiatics.
‘Citronella’ is a beautiful pendant-flowered Asiatic derived from Lilium lancifolium — turk’s-cap flowers in clear, warm lemon-yellow spotted with brown. Reliable, vigorous and capable of naturalising in good conditions.
‘Brushstroke’ offers white petals edged and streaked with raspberry-pink — a bicolour effect of considerable elegance.
The Essential Varieties: Trumpet and Aurelian Hybrids
Lilium regale deserves its own category by virtue of its extraordinary position in lily history. Wilson’s Sichuan introduction, available as the straight species, bears large white trumpet flowers, purple-flushed on the exterior and intensely, almost overwhelmingly fragrant. It is one of the most powerfully scented of all garden plants — a dozen bulbs in flower on a still July evening will perfume a substantial garden. It grows to 1 to 1.5 metres, is reliably hardy and perennial in well-drained soil, and is among the easiest of the scented lilies to grow. If you grow only one lily, the case for L. regale is very strong.
‘Pink Perfection Group’ produces large, outward-facing trumpet flowers of deep, warm carmine-pink — a colour unusual in Trumpet lilies. Intensely fragrant, tall, and among the most striking of the Aurelian hybrids.
‘African Queen Group’ bears enormous, outward-facing trumpet flowers of warm amber-apricot, flushed with brown-purple on the exterior. One of the finest and most distinctive of all Trumpet lilies.
‘Golden Splendour Group’ offers rich, deep golden-yellow trumpets of great size and powerful fragrance — the definitive yellow Trumpet lily.
‘Casa Blanca’ is technically an Oriental rather than a Trumpet lily but bears mentioning here as one of the most widely grown and most widely admired of all white lilies — enormous, flat-faced, pure white flowers with recurved petals and prominent orange stamens, intensely fragrant. It is the defining white lily of the cut flower trade and of the wedding flower industry.
The Essential Varieties: Oriental Hybrids
‘Stargazer’ is the most widely planted Oriental hybrid in the world and has been since its introduction in 1974. Its upward-facing flowers — a quality unusual in Oriental lilies, most of which face outward or downward — are carmine-pink with white margins and deep maroon spots, and the fragrance is powerful and sweet. It is more tolerant of neutral soil than many Orientals and is genuinely vigorous where conditions suit it.
‘Casa Blanca’ — as noted above — is the essential white Oriental: enormous flowers of absolute purity, with a fragrance that is the closest thing in the plant world to the idealized concept of lily scent. A single stem in a room will perfume it for a week.
‘Black Beauty’ is technically an OT hybrid (Oriental x Trumpet cross) rather than a pure Oriental, but it deserves prominence here as one of the most remarkable lilies available. Its flowers are deep, rich crimson-red with reflexed petals — a turk’s-cap form in Oriental colouring — carried in exceptional numbers on tall stems that can reach 1.8 metres. It is one of the most reliably perennial and vigorous of the scented lily hybrids.
‘Scheherazade’ is another OT hybrid of outstanding quality — very large, outward-facing flowers in deep ruby-red with a white margin, carried on stems of up to 2 metres. Its constitution is exceptional: virus-resistant, reliably perennial, and producing increasing quantities of flowers year on year.
‘Conca D’Or’ is perhaps the finest yellow OT hybrid — large, flat-faced flowers of a warm, rich yellow shading to cream at the margins, with moderate but genuine fragrance. It combines the Oriental’s flower size with the Trumpet’s yellow colouring in a way that neither parent division achieves alone.
‘Dizzy’ is a white Oriental with deep pink stripes running from the centre of each petal toward the margin — a reverse picotee effect of great elegance. One of the most photogenic of all lilies.
The Essential Species
Lilium martagon — the Turk’s cap lily — is the most naturally garden-worthy of all lily species and the one most suited to the low-maintenance philosophy. It produces pendant, strongly reflexed, dark-spotted rose-purple flowers in June and July on tall stems, tolerates shade, dry conditions, alkaline soil and competition from other plants, and naturalises with a persistence and reliability that no lily hybrid can match. Once established in a woodland or shaded border, it multiplies slowly from seed over decades, eventually producing large, self-sustaining colonies. The white form, L. martagon var. album, is among the most beautiful and refined of all woodland plants. Neither form requires any care beyond initial planting at the right depth.
Lilium candidum — the Madonna lily — is grown as much for its history as for its beauty, though the beauty is considerable: pure white, sweetly fragrant, outward-facing flowers on stems of 1 to 1.5 metres in June and July. It is the most ancient lily in cultivation and the most culturally significant, but it is also, maddeningly, one of the most particular in its requirements. It demands alkaline, very well-drained soil, a warm and sheltered position, and — uniquely among lilies — shallow planting, with the nose of the bulb at or just below the soil surface. In the right conditions it is reliable and long-lived; in the wrong ones it rots and dies. It does not transplant well and resents disturbance. But a well-established clump of L. candidum in flower in a cottage garden in June is one of the most beautiful sights in the horticultural calendar.
Lilium auratum — the golden-rayed lily of Japan — is the most spectacular and the most demanding of the commonly grown species. Its enormous flowers — 25 to 30cm across — are white with a broad golden central band running the length of each petal and scattered with crimson spots: a combination of scale and complexity that is genuinely extraordinary. The fragrance is powerful and sweet. It requires acid soil, excellent drainage and good cultivation, and is susceptible to virus. For those able to provide its preferred conditions, it is without rival in the genus.
Lilium speciosum bears strongly recurved, fragrant flowers of white flushed with pink and spotted with crimson on tall stems in August and September — among the last of the garden lilies to flower. Both the pink-flushed ‘Rubrum’ and the pure white ‘Album’ are of great beauty.
Lilium lancifolium (previously L. tigrinum) — the tiger lily — is among the most reliable and vigorous of all lily species, spreading by bulbils produced in the leaf axils and naturalising freely in good soil. Its pendant, strongly recurved flowers are brilliant orange heavily spotted with black. Extremely tolerant and long-lived; an excellent beginning for the gardener new to lilies.
In the Garden: How to Use Them
Lilies are more versatile in their garden applications than their formal appearance might suggest.
The mixed border is the natural home for most hybrid lilies. Planted in groups of five or seven among perennials that will help support their stems and disguise their rather bare lower reaches — hardy geraniums, Astrantia, Salvia, the lower-growing grasses — they provide a vertical element and a scale of flower that no perennial can match. The key is to plant them deeply enough (see cultivation notes below) and to surround them with companions of roughly appropriate height, so that the lily stem rises above its neighbours into clear air rather than disappearing into the surrounding planting.
The cutting garden is where lilies particularly reward dedicated growing. A cutting row of L. regale, followed by rows of Oriental hybrids timed to flower in succession, provides cut flower material from June to September of extraordinary quality and fragrance — material that would cost a significant amount to buy from a florist. The fragrance of a cut lily stem is so persistent that a single vase will continue scenting a room for a week or more after the blooms have faded.
Container growing suits the Asiatic hybrids particularly well, and is in fact often the best method for growing Oriental hybrids too, allowing precise control of soil pH and drainage. A generous pot — 30 to 40cm in diameter for a group of three to five bulbs — filled with a mixture of ericaceous compost and perlite produces excellent results for Orientals. Large terracotta containers of regale lilies placed beside an entrance door, where the fragrance is encountered at close range on summer evenings, is one of the most satisfying deployments of any container plant.
Woodland naturalising with L. martagon and its cultivars is one of the most beautiful long-term garden projects available. Planted once, at appropriate depth, in dappled shade under deciduous trees, martagon lilies will gradually increase through self-seeding into impressive colonies of astonishing beauty. This is gardening on the generational timescale — a planting made today may reach its full potential in twenty years — but the patience is entirely worthwhile.
The white garden in June and July is incomplete without lilies. Lilium regale, L. candidum, L. martagon var. album, ‘Casa Blanca’ and the white Trumpet hybrids combine with the great white perennials — Phlox, Campanula lactiflora ‘Alba’, white Agapanthus — in a display of combined fragrance and purity that is hard to surpass.
Cultivation
Planting time. Most lily bulbs are planted in autumn (October to November) or in early spring (February to March). Spring planting is often more practical for gardeners who buy bulbs from garden centres, where stock tends to arrive in late winter. Avoid planting dormant bulbs in frozen ground or waterlogged soil. Lily bulbs should never be allowed to dry out completely before planting — unlike tulip or daffodil bulbs, which are thoroughly dormant, lily bulbs have no true resting period and lose viability quickly if desiccated. Plant as soon as possible after purchase.
Planting depth. The standard rule — three times the diameter of the bulb — applies to most lilies, which means a large bulb might be planted 15 to 20cm deep. The notable exception is Lilium candidum, which must be planted with the nose of the bulb at or just below the surface. Deeper planting for most other varieties is not harmful and in fact encourages the development of stem roots, which provide additional nutrient uptake.
Stem-rooting versus base-rooting. Many lily species and hybrids — including all Asiatic, Oriental and Trumpet hybrids — are stem-rooting: they produce roots along the underground portion of the stem above the bulb, as well as from the base of the bulb itself. This means that a mulch or topdressing of compost or leafmould applied around the stems as they emerge in spring is actively beneficial, feeding these stem roots and improving plant performance.
Soil. Most lilies prefer a well-drained, humus-rich soil that is neutral to acid in pH. Oriental hybrids and L. auratum are more strictly acid-loving than most and will not thrive in alkaline conditions. L. regale, L. candidum and the martagon group are more tolerant of alkaline soil. In heavy clay or very alkaline conditions, raised beds or container growing are the most reliable approaches.
Feeding. A high-potassium fertiliser (tomato feed) applied fortnightly from spring emergence until the flower buds are showing colour encourages large, well-formed flowers and supports bulb development for the following season. Do not feed after flowering. A mulch of well-rotted organic matter applied in spring provides background nutrition throughout the season.
Staking. Tall lilies — particularly Trumpet and Oriental hybrids on exposed sites — benefit from discreet staking. A single bamboo cane per stem, inserted carefully to avoid spearing the bulb, with a soft tie at two-thirds of the eventual height, is sufficient. In sheltered positions, many lilies are self-supporting.
After flowering. Remove spent flower heads as they fade to prevent seed set, which diverts the plant’s energy away from bulb development. Allow the stems and foliage to remain until they have died back naturally — this period, typically six to eight weeks after flowering, is when the bulb replenishes its energy reserves for the following year. Cutting back the stems while they are still green significantly weakens bulbs and reduces subsequent performance.
Lifting and storage. Most lily bulbs can be left in the ground year-round if the soil is free-draining and the drainage does not deteriorate in winter. In wet, heavy soils or where winter damage is a concern, lifting in autumn after the stems have died back completely, cleaning the bulbs carefully, and storing in dry compost or peat in a cool, frost-free place is a reliable alternative. Replant in spring.
The Lily Beetle
No cultivation guide to lilies can omit the lily beetle (Lilioceris lilii). This small, brilliantly scarlet beetle — attractive enough that some gardeners have been reluctant to kill it on aesthetic grounds — arrived in Britain from continental Europe and has spread across most of England and Wales since the 1990s. Both the adult beetle and its larvae (which cover themselves in their own excrement as a protective measure, a detail that does not endear them to gardeners) cause severe defoliation of lily stems and can destroy an entire planting if not controlled.
The most effective control strategy is manual removal — checking plants daily from the moment the red shoots emerge in spring, picking off adults and larvae by hand and dropping them into a container of soapy water. This requires vigilance and consistency but is effective and avoids chemical use. Adults overwinter in the soil and emerge with the first warm days of spring; early detection at this stage prevents the population from building to damaging levels. Neem oil spray and pyrethrum-based insecticides provide additional control if manual removal is insufficient, but neither is fully reliable.
Lilium martagon is significantly less susceptible to lily beetle than the hybrid lilies, as is Lilium hansonii. Where lily beetle pressure is severe, concentrating on these species and on the martagon hybrids provides a low-maintenance alternative to the constant vigilance required by the more susceptible divisions.
Lilies and Fragrance
The lily’s fragrance is not a single thing but a spectrum, and understanding the variation — which divisions are scented, which are not, and how the scent character differs between groups — helps enormously in choosing lilies for a fragrant garden.
Asiatic hybrids are almost entirely without scent — the breeding that produced their wide colour range and upward-facing flowers simultaneously sacrificed the fragrance present in some of their wild ancestors. If fragrance is a priority, Asiatics are the wrong choice.
Martagon hybrids range from pleasantly scented to powerful, with a character that tends toward the musky rather than the sweet — a fragrance that some find refined and others find slightly heavy. L. martagon var. album is the most delicate.
Lilium regale’s fragrance is sweet, rich and penetrating — one of the most instantly recognisable scents in the garden, carrying considerable distances on warm evenings and combining the sweetness of Oriental lily fragrance with a slightly more complex, almost spicy quality.
Oriental hybrids and OT hybrids are the most powerfully fragrant division, producing a rich, sweet, slightly heady scent that is the defining lily fragrance of the florist’s world. ‘Casa Blanca’, ‘Stargazer’ and the Trumpet lilies carry this quality to its maximum intensity. A word of caution: for some people, the fragrance of Oriental lilies indoors is genuinely overwhelming, and vases of cut Oriental lilies are best placed in large, ventilated rooms rather than bedrooms. The pollen, which is produced in abundance and stains fabric permanently, should be removed from the anthers as soon as flowers open if cut stems are brought indoors.
Why the Lily Remains Irreplaceable
The garden has a large cast of beautiful plants, and many of them are easier, more forgiving and more reliably self-maintaining than the lily. The argument for growing lilies — despite the beetle, despite the occasional virus, despite the requirement for specific soil conditions — is that they do something no other plant does.
They combine, in a single stem, a flower of architectural scale and sculptural precision with a fragrance of genuine power and beauty, and they do it in the height of summer when the garden is at its most crowded and competitive. An Asiatic hybrid in the border provides a point of vertical colour and form from June that no perennial can match. A vase of regale in July scents a room more effectively than any other cut flower available at that season. A clump of martagon lilies naturalised under a birch tree in dappled shade is among the most beautiful things a garden can contain, requiring virtually no maintenance from one decade to the next.
Ernest Wilson sacrificed the reliable use of his right leg for the sake of Lilium regale. It was not, it must be said, an entirely rational transaction. But anyone who has stood beside a well-established clump of regale in flower on a still July evening, in the warm air at the end of a long day, and breathed in what Wilson carried home from Sichuan, will understand that it was, in its own way, entirely worth it.
Key Asiatic varieties: ‘Landini’, ‘Matrix’, ‘Citronella’, ‘Brushstroke’, Tiny Series.
Key Trumpet and Aurelian: Lilium regale, ‘Pink Perfection Group’, ‘African Queen Group’, ‘Golden Splendour Group’.
Key Orientals and OT hybrids: ‘Stargazer’, ‘Casa Blanca’, ‘Black Beauty’, ‘Scheherazade’, ‘Conca D’Or’, ‘Dizzy’.
Key species: L. martagon, L. martagon var. album, L. candidum, L. auratum, L. speciosum, L. lancifolium.
For sourcing, contact: Avon Bulbs (avonbulbs.co.uk), Jacques Amand International (jacquesamand.co.uk), Peter Nyssen (peternyssen.com), or B&D Lilies (for species and rarer varieties). Consult the RHS Plant Finder at rhsplantfinder.rhs.org.uk.
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