Get tips on how to choose, care for and where to plant these versatile and easy-to-grow lilies.
This week's flower crowns are brimming with vibrant pollinators.
Welcome to this week's “Flower Crowns,” where we showcase the spectacular pollinator crowns created to attract and nourish our most important garden visitors.
A feast for the eyes and bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
Bee balm is a popular plant for pollinators with its bold tubular flowers, sweet nectar and fragrant foliage. The red flowers of Monarda didyma and the lavender blossoms of Monarda fistulsa create a striking contrast, adding depth and vibrancy to the garden. Swamp milkweed is the true star of the garden for pollinators. This essential plant provides the perfect host for monarch butterfly larvae and plays a key role in their development. Butterfly weed, with its bright orange flowers, attracts butterflies and bees. Its long-lasting flowers add a splash of color to the garden and ensure a constant stream of pollinators throughout the flowering season.
So far this year, I have spotted four monarch butterflies, all in pollinator plantings, and I love these vibrant flowers and the life they bring to our garden.
What else is blooming in your garden this week?
Lilies! It's lily season!
Lilies are perhaps one of the most popular flowers available to gardeners and florists. This highly versatile and easy to grow bulbous plant adds colour and impact. Planted in fertile, well-drained soil with their roots in the shade and their heads in full sun, lilies add colour to your garden with very little effort.
With lilies, planting them is important to get the most out of them. Lilies have long stems and are tall, so they can look out of place in your landscape if not placed well with other plants around them. Consider placing them in a mixed planting, especially with perennials that will flower in the early spring and provide a bit of brightness mid-season.
Color palette:
Pair warm-toned lilies with monardas (bee balms) and black-eyed Susans for a vibrant, radiant look, while cool-toned lilies with purple veronicas and salvias create a serene, calming garden.
There are many different types of lilies. Let's look at a few groups based on when they typically flower in the garden: These are some of the lilies in my garden that aren't Lilium species: Thanks to my local lily grower, Gratrix Garden Lilies, my lilies are thriving and providing beautiful blooms for my outdoor space.
Martagon Lily: Also known as the Turk's Cap Lily, this is an early-flowering lily. Its flowers face downwards and it thrives in the shade. Turk's Cap Lilies tower over the rest of the garden, but you're in luck because their graceful, drooping flowers are best viewed from below. Their height makes them a good choice for planting at the back of a flower bed.
Asiatic Lily: This lily produces bright, vibrantly colored flowers in late spring and early summer, but has little fragrance.
(Photo by northernontarioflora.ca)
Species Lilies: These wild lilies have different flowering times depending on the species, adding a unique look and natural feel to your garden. Trumpet Hybrids: These lilies flower in midsummer and are known for their large trumpet-shaped flowers and strong fragrance. Oriental Lilies: Known for their large, fragrant flowers, they usually flower in mid to late summer. Tree lilies (oriental pet hybrids) are essentially a cross between oriental and trumpet lilies, a plant that has the best characteristics of both types, including height, flower size, and fragrance. This also flowers in mid to late summer.
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Tiger Lily: With vibrant orange flowers and black speckles that bloom in mid to late summer, this plant is known for its striking appearance and ability to add drama to any garden.
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Facts and tips for gardeners
Although many people associate lilies with strong fragrances, not all lilies are fragrant. Oriental lilies, such as stargazers, are known for their captivating fragrance that permeates the entire garden. Asiatic lilies, on the other hand, are valued for their vibrant colors but generally have no fragrance. The lily leaf beetle (Lilioceris lilii) is a common pest in Ontario that can cause significant damage to lilies. Although it is difficult to eradicate completely, there are effective management strategies. Inspect lilies regularly and remove beetles, larvae and eggs by hand. To repel beetles, apply neem oil as a natural insecticide. Introducing natural enemies such as parasitic wasps can help keep beetle populations in check. The European lily leaf beetle arrived in North America in the 1940s and quickly became a major pest in Ontario. By the early 2000s, this pest had become a serious threat to lily farmers in the region. With diligent pest management and education, farmers and gardeners have successfully eradicated the beetles, allowing the lily industry to recover and grow. The best time to transplant lilies is in the fall after the leaves have died back. This allows the bulbs to establish roots before winter and set up for vigorous growth in the spring. If you miss the fall window, early spring is the next best thing, before the new growth begins.
The long history of the lily
Lilies have a long and storied history dating back more than 3,000 years. They have been cultivated since ancient times and feature in the art and literature of civilizations such as Greece, Rome, Egypt and China. Lilies were prized not only for their beauty but also for their symbolic and medicinal properties. The Madonna lily (Lilium candidum) is one of the oldest cultivated lilies and has been revered for centuries.
(Photo from wikipedia.org)
Lily
By William Blake
The humble rose grows thorns,
The humble sheep has threatening horns.
While the white lilies rejoice in love,
No thorn or threat can tarnish her radiant beauty.
(Photos by Monika Rekola unless otherwise noted).
Monica Rekora is a certified landscape designer and horticulturist with a passion for gardening and sustainable living. As a budding subsistence farmer and gardening writer, she shares her love of recycling, reusing and bird watching. Monica practices ecological gardening, aiming to balance our delicate ecosystems. Contact her at [email protected].
