Easter lilies, or Lilium longiflorum, are perennial flowers that come up in grocery stores and flower shops like clockwork. Their trumpet-shaped, snow-white blossoms have a timeless elegance and a delicate perfume that fills the air. These potted Easter lilies frequently get thrown out once their flowers fade. However, if you take a little more care, you may really save them and add them to your flower beds, where they’ll probably bloom once more in the next years. Here is everything you need to know to make the most of these simple-to-grow bulbs, both in the garden and as potted plants.
Can you grow an Easter lily indoors?
The Easter Lily (Lilium longiflorum) is a midseason bloomer that is extensively cultivated for use in cut flowers or potted plant arrangements. During the early spring when Easter is observed, the Easter Lily’s popularity surges. However, this popular flower’s natural blooming season is from early to midsummer, usually in the months of June and July. Easter lilies in pots can be grown indoors until the weather is warmer, at which point they can be planted outdoors.
Easter lilies—will they blossom again inside?
Simply adhere to the simple directions shown below to maintain your lilies year after year and create a lovely outdoor lily garden (see Building Beautiful Garden Borders for ideas on where to plant them).
First, Prolong Indoor Bloom Time
Make sure to extend your lilies’ indoor bloom time to get the most enjoyment out of them. Pinch off the yellow anthers inside the blooms as soon as they open to achieve this. This stops pollination and keeps the flowers white (unpollinated blossoms remain longer).
Keeping your lily plants in the 70s during the day and the 40s at night will also extend their blooming period. Warmer conditions shorten the blooming period.
Then, Prepare Them For Outdoor Blooming
An Easter lily can be grown indoors as a houseplant, but when planted outdoors, they easily blossom again every year.
Once your plant’s blossoms have faded, remove all of them in order to get it ready for planting outdoors. As a result, the plant is compelled to grow the bulb rather than flower seeds.
How are Easter lilies preserved indoors?
Find a location inside your house that receives bright, indirect sunlight if you’re buying a plant. As Easter lilies prefer mild, not-too-hot, not-too-cold temperatures of 60 to 65 degrees, make sure the region isn’t too frigid. Additionally, you need to be careful with how much water you give your plant. Test the soil with your finger to see if it needs watering, advises Gastanas. “Watering the lily is a good idea if the soil seems dry.” To keep the flower fresh for a longer period of time and to prevent stains on your clothing and tablecloths, remove any drying or dead flowers as soon as they emerge. Pollen is able to spread everywhere! The plant will eventually die back because it is a bulbous plant. At this point, you must choose whether to let it go or attempt to grow it back. Another crucial piece of advice is to consider carefully whether to bring an Easter lily into your home if you have cats because they are harmful to cats.
Can you grow Easter lilies in pots?
Don’t discard your Easter lilies this year. You might alternatively plant them outside. As the blooms wilt, prune them back, but don’t touch the leaves. Plant the bulb six inches deep as soon as the ground is workable and the weather is not frost-threatening. Select an area with good drainage and at least a half-worth day’s of sun exposure. If the soil is not naturally well-draining, P. Allen Smith Garden Home advises blending sand and compost into it. If you take precautions to prevent the containers from freezing over the winter, you can even plant the lilies in containers. Place the containers in a place where they won’t freeze but will remain chilly. Lilies need time to cool off during the winter months while they are dormant.
How long do indoor Easter lilies last?
Put your Easter flower in a planter inside, in a place with lots of light. Continually moisten the soil. Depending on the indoor temperature, flowering should continue for a week to two weeks.
How long do lilies in pots stay fresh?
How long does an Easter flower in a container last? Commercial Easter lilies in pots should continue to bloom for one to two weeks after being purchased with proper care. Transplant the bulb in your garden six inches deep if you want to keep the plant alive for a longer period of time. It will bloom again each year after becoming established.
What is the meaning of an Easter lily?
The white lily is a sign of purity, rebirth, new beginnings, and hope and is frequently connected to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is celebrated on Easter. It is mentioned frequently in the Bible. The Easter lily is a symbol of motherhood in Pagan customs and is frequently given to mothers as a token of appreciation.
After they bloom, what do you do with lilies in pots?
Add extra potting soil to the container once the bulb tips of your container-grown lilies start to sprout. For watering, keep the soil line about 1 inch (2.5 cm) below the pot’s brim. Only water when the top layer of soil appears to be dry. To test whether the soil is moist or dry, I typically just stick the tip of my finger directly into it. I give it a lot of water if it’s dry. If damp, I recheck the following day.
From June to August, Asiatic and Oriental lilies will blossom. Deadhead the flowers after they have faded to promote the establishment of fresh flowers and bulbs rather than the formation of seeds. The blooms and bulbs benefit from a monthly application of tomato fertilizer as well. The last month you should apply fertilizer is August.
Overwintering Container Grown Lilies
With careful overwintering, your potted lily plants can survive in these containers for a few years. Cut the stalks back in the fall to just above the soil line. Stop watering now to prevent the bulbs from rotting.
To keep mice and other pests away, place a few mothballs in the pot. Then just store them for the winter in a frost-free greenhouse, cold frame, shed, or cellar. If you don’t have a cool shelter to place the pot in, you could also wrap the entire thing in bubble wrap and leave it outside over the winter.
Lilies grown in containers shouldn’t be stored indoors over the winter because doing so will prevent them from blooming the following year.
How are potted lilies cared for?
How should potted lilies be maintained? A Place the pots in direct sunlight and make sure the compost is always moist but not soggy. During the summer, fertilize once every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer, such as tomato feed. When the foliage has died down in the fall, repot bulbs or move them to the garden.
How often will a potted lily plant bloom?
- Water plants liberally when they are actively growing, especially if there is less than an inch of rain every week.
- Mulch lilies to keep the soil cool for the roots. The mulch need to have a damp, but not soggy, feel. Find out more mulching.
- From planting until six weeks after flowering, apply a liquid fertilizer with a high potassium content every two weeks.
- Each spring, apply a small coating of compost, then a 2-inch layer of mulch.
- Pinch the tall lilies.
- Lilies only bloom once a season, but you can pick off the faded petals to prevent the plants from wasting energy on producing seeds.
- You can even get rid of the stem alone after the lily blooms. However, wait until the leaves have withered down and turned brown in the fall before removing them. Because the leaves help feed the bulb for the blooms of the following season, it is crucial to wait to prune them until the end of their season.
- Late fall or early spring is the best time to remove the dead stems.
- Add 4 to 6 inches of mulch before winter merely to prevent the earth from freezing and let the roots continue to expand. Once the final hard frost has passed, wait to add mulch until spring. See the frost dates in your area. See the frost dates in your area.
- Keep the soil moist in the winter if there is no snow cover in your area.
- Start to gently remove the mulch in the spring when the lily shoots emerge through it.
- As springtime brings about fresh growth, divide plants every three to four years. To divide the clumps, simply pull the plants. Add some compost while replanting the new bulbs.
Lilies come in a variety of varieties and bloom throughout the year. By planting bulbs from various types, you can enjoy lilies all summer long with some forward planning.
The earliest to bloom and the simplest to grow are Asiatic lilies. They bloom from early spring to mid-summer, with blooms that face upward. Asiatic lilies are hardy in Zones 4 through 9. They appear in white, pink, bright yellow, orange, and red. Despite having lost much of their aroma due to intense breeding, Asiatics are still a favorite among floral arrangers.
- ‘Crete’: deep pink, 3 to 4 feet tall, blooms from June to July.
- ‘Enchantment’: orange, 2 to 3 feet tall, blooms in June.
Summer is when trumpet lilies blossom. They grow tall and produce trumpet-shaped blooms in hardiness zones 5 to 9. There are 12 to 15 blooms per stem on trumpet lilies. They have a fantastically sweet, heavy scent.
- White, early to late summer blooming, 3 to 4 feet tall; “Regale”
- ‘Rising Moon’ is a 3 to 4 foot tall plant that blooms in midsummer and is a pale yellow with pink edging.
Oriental hybrids finish the season by flowering in the middle to end of the summer, right when Asiatic lilies are starting to lose their color. Orientals are a beautiful option no matter how tall they are, from small 2-footers to hulking 8-foot giants (the shorter ones are great for patio beds or container gardens). Oriental lilies are prized for their alluring scent, which gets stronger at night, and they produce masses of enormous white, pink, red, or bi-colored blooms. They make excellent cut flowers that have strong smells that can fill even the biggest spaces.
- ‘Black Beauty’: 5 to 6 feet tall, dark red, late summer blooms.
- ‘Casa Blanca’: white, grows 4 to 5 feet tall, blooms from August to September.
Displaying Lilies in Vases
Lilies are excellent as cut flowers. But don’t remove more than a third of the stem. Since the plant uses its leaf to produce energy, taking more than that can reduce its vigor and longevity.
Consider growing lilies in a special cutting garden where you may plant new bulbs every year if you are only growing them for cut flowers.
Pick lilies for cutting that have buds that are just beginning to open and have some of the blossom color visible. As the buds at the bottom fade, the buds higher above will open.
As soon as you have the lilies inside, use a sharp knife to make a diagonal cut that is about an inch long to trim the stem ends.
Simply cut off the stamens in the center of the flower if you are concerned that the orange pollen from lilies can leave stains.
Remove the lower stem leaves before putting in a vase to prevent any foliage from submerging.
A excellent lily arrangement should persist for two weeks or more. Water should be changed every few days.
Add cut-flower food to the water to aid in extending the life of the blooms. Lilies barely need half of the food that is suggested for other flowers.
How frequently should Easter lilies be watered?
Waggoner advises keeping an eye on your plant once a week and watering when the top two inches of soil feel dry to the touch. It’s crucial to never (ever!) leave the lily in standing water or allow the soil to become excessively moist.
After an Easter lily blooms, what should you do with it?
We can thank World War I soldier Louis Houghton for the Bermuda lily’s rise to fame as the Easter lily in this nation. He sent family and friends in 1919 a bag full of hybrid lily bulbs to be planted on the southern Oregon coast. The Ryukyu Islands of Japan’s native lily thrived in the climate there, and by 1945, 1,200 farmers on the west coast were producing bulbs for the commercial market. The U.S. export market was previously dominated by Bermuda and subsequently Japan.
95 percent of all bulbs grown globally for the potted Easter lily industry are currently produced by ten farmers, the majority of whom are situated around the California-Oregon border in a region dubbed the “Easter Lily Capital of the World.” Nearly 12 million bulbs are produced and shipped to industrial greenhouses in the United States and Canada. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Easter lilies are the fourth largest crop in terms of wholesale value in the country’s potted plant market despite having a two-week sales window. Azaleas, mums, and poinsettias come in first through third place.
The “Nellie White” cultivar is the one that is most frequently grown for U.S. markets. Its big, fragrant, white trumpet-shaped flowers are called after the wife of a lily grower. Look for a lily plant with flowers in a range of bloom stages, from buds to open or partially opened blossoms, when purchasing one. The foliage should be thick, deep green in tone, and reach all the way to the soil surface. This is a reliable sign of a strong root system. Look for a plant that is proportionate, almost twice as high as the pot. You should also look for disease and insect indications in the buds, foliage, and flowers.
Keep your lilies away from heating ducts, appliances, and other drying heat sources at home. Daytime temperatures of 65 to 75 F are ideal with bright, indirect light. Do not overwater the plant; only water it when the soil seems dry to the touch. Remove the yellow anthers (pollen-bearing pods) that are located in the center of each bloom to extend the life of the blossoms.
After your Easter flower has finished blooming, do not discard it. The bulb can be saved and planted outside. After the blooms fade, Easter lilies can be planted again outside. When the ground can be worked, sow the Easter lily outside. Choose a spot with well-drained soil that is sunny. Place the bulb’s top six inches below the soil’s surface. Leave the stalk and leaves but trim the old blossoms. Wait to prune the stem until the fall, when it will die down, and then cut it off at the soil’s surface. Mulch the soil once the soil surface freezes in the late fall and keep the mulch on it until the spring when new growth starts.
Your online source for gardening and yard-related information in Lancaster County is University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension. Residents of southeast Nebraska can use the information on this website. In your location, it might or might not apply. Visit your neighborhood Extension office if you reside elsewhere than in southeast Nebraska.