Lilium 'Black Beauty'

Lilium ducharteri

Lilium lancifolium

There is something really exciting about February as seeds are being sown new shoots are swelling the snowdrops are on song and new plants are arriving. Looking through catalogues and in Garden Centres one very encouraging surprise is the number of unusual bulbs being offered, most are species (wild plants) not cultivars and usually come under the section miscellaneous.
Lilies are a real garden favourite and have been available for a long time in a wide choice of cultivars but less so as species.
Recently many more species are becoming readily available. In fact if you look through old catalogues you often only found a few white species, the speciosum type and the tigridium type. All these species are good plants but there is a huge variety of species lily coming in a great range of colour and size and flower shape.
One of the advantages of species lily is they can be grown from seed it often takes between three and five years but it saves money and can be great fun.
Some of the species will settle in and behave like true herbaceous plants and form large clumps unlike many of cultivars which dwindle without dividing the offsets.
Lilium Black Beauty is a notable exception which has formed a three meter wide clump at Aberglasney with literally hundreds of blooms.
Seed grown species also reduce the chance of getting virus in your plants which is often hard to spot until you see one without virus and realise how much more vigorous they are.
The species Lilies have not been bred for the garden and need to be treated a little differently. In the wild many are hedgerow plants or grow in shrub thickets.
What this means is they are much taller and need staking. Instantly you think more work but rather than stake them if they are placed between tightly planted shrubs the shrubs will give the support. This is a really good way of growing them as you get too sets of interest one from the Lily and one from the shrub. This can also be done with Thalictrum which combine well with Lily colour wise.
So where is a good position to grow them?
They enjoy very moist free draining soil they are prone to winter rot but enjoy the high rainfall we get.
Other than full shade or full sun they are happy and will take full sun if the roots are kept cool. They really enjoy good mulch and are pretty hardy. The two pest problems are slugs and Lily beetle.
I have successfully removed Lily Beetle by picking them off all season but it was a pain a staking process.
Growing them from seed stops you bringing them to the garden and there are some chemicals available that help control them.
So which ones are good to grow?
Welsh gardens are ideal for species lilies as they enjoy our rainfall, the Martagon type Lilies are excellent garden plants.

My mother has a clump that is a good fifteen years old and absolutely no trouble there is also a new range cultivars offering different colour choices no.

Lilium sargentiae has fantastic white flowers grows very tall and has the added advantage that it produces bulbils on the stem that can be propagated.

Lilium ducharteri is a smaller plant that is happy in sun or shade and runs underground acting more like a perennial.

Lilium taliense can grow to well over three meters tall with over fifteen blooms per stem and great to grow through shrubs.

Lilium lancifolium is a very interesting orange species that you can grow as a vegetable and eat like a potato.
Tips for the Week
Plant early vegetables
Make the most of the dry weather to prepare seed beds for direct sowing
Dahlia can be potted up
Check your glasshouse for pests and deal with them now before the glasshouse gets full
Use fleece or carpet to cover the soil before planting it makes a big difference
There is still time to divide perennials but be careful of new buds
Bare root plants can be planted now