Save Your Easter Lilies – Gardening Glories, Year After Year

Easter lilies are a perennial favorite! These fragrant flowers, with their pure, white trumpet-shaped blossoms signal the coming of spring and the promise of new life. What a wonderful tradition for Easter decorating and gifts!

How can you extend the life of your Easter lilies, so that you may enjoy their blooming glories for the longest time possible?

Enjoy Your Easter Lilies Indoors.

The Easter lily (lilium longiflorum) originated in Japan. As such, it flourishes in moderate temperatures. Indoors, Easter lilies do best at room temperature, between 60 (F) and 70 (F) degrees.

Easter lilies naturally grow best outdoors during summer months. Actually, the bulbs are forced into blooming indoors for spring celebrations.

Be sure to protect your Easter lily from direct sunlight, as well as excessive heat or cold. Heating vents, appliances (such as toasters, stove tops, laundry machines), working fireplaces, or even open windows may be detrimental to these flowers.

Also, Easter lilies can be quite poisonous to cats. One lily snack may be toxic, causing digestive distress or even kidney failure. Be sure to keep your Easter lilies out of reach, if you have pets!

Water Your Easter Lilies.

An Easter lily does well in moist soil, although it cannot tolerate standing water. If your Easter lily arrived in a foil-covered pot, you will want to remove the foil, so the pot may drain. Water your Easter lily well, and place a saucer under the pot.

Every few days, you can place your Easter lily in a sink or tub to give it a gentle all-over shower. Sprinkle water over the blossoms and foliage to discourage dust. Allow the plant to drain well before removing it to the saucer.

Extend Easter lily Blooming.

Easter lilies will bud and bloom, offering fragrance and beauty for many days. As each blossom fades and wilts, you can pinch it off gently with your fingers.

If you reach inside each flower and pinch off the golden anthers as soon as the blossoms have opened, you can encourage the blooming to last longer. This is also an excellent way to keep the pollen from staining your tablecloths, countertops or other surfaces indoors.

Plant Your Easter Lilies in Your Outdoor Garden.

Once your Easter lily has exhausted all of its blossoms, do not toss the plant! Why not save it for your outdoor garden instead?

Stop watering your Easter lily when it becomes wilted, as the leaves begin to die off. Use a sharp knife or set of plant pruners to cut the main stem, about two inches above the soil. Place the plant in a temperate spot, either indoors or outside (if the final frost has passed).

When spring planting time arrives in your gardening zone, you can plant your Easter lily in your garden bed. Choose a sunny spot with healthy soil and good drainage.

Plant multiple Easter lilies about ten to twelve inches apart, to allow for annual growth and multiplication.

For each plant, dig a hole that exceeds your pot diameter by at least two inches. Loosen surrounding soil. Add sphagnum peat moss and plant fertilizer, if desired.

Remove the pot from your Easter lily plant. Loosen the root system (under your Easter lily) by gently poking and tapping the root base. Place your Easter lily into the ground, with the pot soil even with the garden bed. Add enriched potting soil around it and on top. Water your Easter lily well.

The original stem and foliage will wither and wilt. However, if you wait patiently for several weeks, you will begin to see a new shoot system emerging from the soil.

By midsummer, you can begin watching for your sweet white Easter lilies to bloom and add a bright accent to your summer garden! (In some climates, Easter lilies may take a year or two to become established in the outdoor garden before re-blooming.)

In the fall, after all blooming has finished, you can cut back your wilting Easter lily stems to prepare the plants for wintering. Mound them with mulch, if needed, for cold-weather protection.

 

IMAGE - public domain artwork

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