Lilies are the true queens of the garden. The variety of their colors, sizes, shapes and aromas is amazing. Most varieties are unpretentious and adapt well to the climate of the middle zone.
Some hybrids bloom even in harsh northern conditions. For lily, outdoor planting and care have a number of differences from other bulb plants.
Outdoor cultivation
To achieve large and healthy flowers, you need to know the nuances of growing: from the choice of bulbs to help in wintering.
Seed selection
You need to start planning a front garden or a flower bed with lilies with a choice of varieties. A harmonious combination of size, height and flowering time will allow you to enjoy a luxurious flower garden all summer.
Varieties for planting
The international botanical classification distinguishes 9 main groups of lilies:
- Asian, more than 5 thousand hybrids, winter-hardy, unpretentious. Flavourless flowers.
- Curly, about 200 varieties. The inflorescences are elegant, the shape is elongated, resembling a candlestick tilted down.
- Snow-white, only 20 varieties. Large boiled-white in color, sometimes with delicate yellow streaks of petals with a strong aroma. Moody, demanding climate and care.
- American, have 150 subspecies. Leaders in brightness, there are incredible shades. A distinctive feature is the dark contrasting speckles on the inside of the calyx.
- Long-flowered, more common among the inhabitants of greenhouses and nurseries. Very sensitive to infections and parasites. Inflorescences are long, elongated, inclined by the core to the ground.
- Tubular, heat-loving varieties, with large incredibly fragrant flowers.
- Oriental, the largest varietal group with more than 1,000 subspecies. Plants love warmth, thorough care, and require careful protection from diseases.
- Interspecific hybrids are popular among gardeners, as they combine the advantages of other groups. The most demanded are LA hybrids, OT hybrids and LO hybrids. The lily corolla can be up to 30 cm in diameter. They are often used for distillation.
- Natural varieties are often inferior to garden relatives in beauty and size, but play a key role in obtaining new varieties.
Bulb Quality
When buying, you need to meticulously inspect the bulbs.
Weak and spoiled ones will not germinate, and infected people can spread pathogens throughout the garden and cause unpleasant troubles.
When choosing a lily, you need to pay attention to:
- The bulb was firm to the touch, juicy, without traces of rot, trauma, black spots and soft patches. If there is noticeable damage, the rules of transportation and storage were most likely violated, which means that the risk of death is great.
- Small shoots and fresh, not dry roots were visible. Such plants are more viable. The size of the living root system should be at least 4-5 cm.
- The onion size was as large as possible. Planting material from 14 cm in diameter will give powerful shoots and large inflorescences. The smaller one will gain strength a year or two, and those with a diameter of less than 3 cm will bloom at all only 2-3 years after planting.
Care should be taken with high sprout material. Probably, these bulbs were not planted in the ground and they missed one vegetation cycle. After rooting, they will begin to grow actively and will not survive the cold weather.
Planting Rules for Various Varietal Groups
The ancestors of decorative garden lilies originally grew in various regions of the planet: from cold, harsh Siberia to the steppe Central Asia, in the mountainous regions of the Caucasus and in the tropical Amazonian foothills. Modern varieties inherited from them preferences for soil acidity, size, vegetation time and sensitivity to cold and disease.
In order not to be mistaken with the choice of a hybrid, you need to know their features.
Group | Location and ground | Landing time | Popular varieties |
Asian | A well-lit area without close groundwater. He likes slightly acidic well-drained soils fertilized with peat or humus. It is possible to plant different varieties in the form of a pyramid, where low-level pixies are located on the lower tier, and large tangos are located on the upper tier. | End of August - beginning of September |
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Eastern | Free, well-warmed and sunlit areas on the south and southeast side. There should not be plants with a powerful root system in the neighborhood. Moisture congestion must not be allowed, therefore places on slopes are ideal. Loose soils neutral to the pH, into which ash, humus, peat, and mineral fertilizers are preliminarily added. | August |
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Tubular | Well-lit areas inaccessible to wind and drafts. Loose, fertile neutral or slightly alkaline earth is suitable. | End of August - beginning of September |
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Curly (Martagon) | Spacious, bright garden areas without the threat of waterlogging. Need sandy or loamy, additionally loosened soil of slightly acidic and neutral pH. The plant is quite large, so it is better suited for single plantings. | End of August - beginning of September |
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Snow white | Solar warm areas in the southern part of the flower garden, well protected from the wind. It prefers fatty fertile soils saturated with nitrogen and potassium, quite moist and loose. In September, the plant is cut, and the bulb is dug up for winter storage. | Planted in the spring after the end of frost. |
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LA hybrid | Well-lit flower beds and front gardens with sandy and loamy soils, facilitated by river sand, peat, leaf humus and ash. Slightly acidic or neutral. | From mid-September to early October |
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OT hybrid | The sunny side of the garden, while the flowers should be placed so that the tops with inflorescences are in the sun, and the stems at the root are in the shade. He loves loose, fertile, well-drained soils. | Beginning of September |
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General location guidelines
Planting lilies most often produced in the fall, about a month before the first frost. This period is necessary for rooting the bulbs in the ground.
If you plant flowers too early, they will grow and die with the onset of cold weather.
In the middle lane, plants are planted in open ground in early September. Usually, gardeners from the beginning of August begin to plant flower beds with varietal lilies and sort planting material. Accordingly, the period of late summer - early autumn is considered the best for the acquisition of plants.
An important role in planning a front garden and choosing a place for lilies is played by their group affiliation. Tubular, Asian and oriental are best placed in the spacious sunny areas of the garden, and curly ones tolerate partial shade.
Plants with large flowers are soloists. They can be placed where bright accents are required, for example, against the background of decorative undersized grasses. Small-flowered varieties should be planted in groups.
Another common way to plan a flower garden is pyramidal, when plants are placed in a slide from creeping and stunted to giants with long stems.
Ideal for most lilies are elevations and slopes in the southern and southeastern sector. And from the point of view of aesthetics, and for reasons of care, it is better to plant flowers along the footpaths.
For garden beauties, places near trees or shrubs with a large root system, such as dahlias and peonies, are not suitable. They feel best in the company of other bulbs: tulips, daffodils, crocuses.
Soil preparation
You need to prepare a place for lilies in advance. For planting in the autumn months, the flowerbed is prepared in June-July. For the spring transfer of bulbs to the soil - in late September or early October.
No matter what month the bulbs take root, the soil is prepared according to the following scheme:
- A bucket of humus, peat or rotted compost, 20-30 grams of superphosphate, 200 grams of wood ash per square meter are evenly scattered on the surface.
- Dig up to a depth of 30-40 cm, turning and loosening the layers.
- After this, several months the natural processes of hydration and fermentation of trace elements occur, so that the soil is completely ready for the planting season.
Bulb preparation
Processing seed is necessary for the prevention of diseases and parasites characteristic of lilies.
If the bulbs and their roots are dried, they must be soaked in water at room temperature for several hours.
After this, reorganization is carried out for 20 minutes using:
- a pink solution of potassium permanganate;
- a preparation prepared from 2 g of malathion or foundationazole per liter of water;
- special equipment Maxim or Vitaros for processing bulbs.
It is not necessary to rinse the disinfectant solutions, just dry a little in the shade.
Landing pattern
The depth of immersion of the bulb in the soil is determined by its size. It should be equal to at least three diameters of the tuber. Too small a distance to the surface can stimulate the appearance of multiple daughter layers, while the lily will not bloom.
The distance between plants should be about 30 centimeters. For those varieties that give several peduncles or have buds wide in diameter, more space is needed.
It is advisable to remove them from other plants not less than half a meter. Then the flower bed will look beautiful, no worse than in magazine photos.
Step-by-step instruction
The order of the correct planting of lilies depends on what kind of material is used for reproduction.
Bulbs
Wells of the required depth and width are prepared at a selected site with a small margin for comfortable placement of roots. Coarse sand is poured into the bottom of the recess, after which the bulb is carefully set up with the sprout up. It is also better to sprinkle it with sand a little, and then cover it with soil, compact and water it.
Buns
Stem buds ripen by mid-September. After small roots appeared on the balls, they are carefully removed from the cuttings and placed in the refrigerator, at a temperature of +3 degrees per month for stratification.
Bulbs are planted immediately in open ground to a depth of about 3 cm at a distance of at least 10 cm from each other.
After watering, the flower bed should be mulched with a layer of peat or leaves.
Seeds
Lily seed is harvested in autumn. After drying and treatment with fungicides, it can be immediately sown in soil or seedlings removed.
The second method is preferable, since you can get a larger number of strong viable plants. It is better to grow flowers from seeds at home in late February - early March.
Step by step getting lily seedlings is as follows:
- Take a container or box with a depth of about 10 cm.
- Fill it with soil from a mixture of sand, peat and garden soil.
- Make grooves in half a centimeter.
- Pour disinfected seeds.
- Cover with primer and moisten thoroughly from the spray gun.
- Wait for seedlings and take care of them until they are transferred to open ground.
Young lilies can be transplanted into the flowerbed in late spring or early fall.