A ROSE-COVERED BUILDING
Chapter SIXTEEN
The Hardy Lily-bed
There is no better investment for the garden than a bed of hardy Lilies, which should be started in the fall as early as the bulbs may be had. This is often later than is desirable, but the matter is entirely beyond control. The best that can be done is to get orders for foreign-grown bulbs placed early in the fall. It is not necessary to wait for the new catalogue, as the old will give the varieties and approximate cost. The main thing is to get in the order early that it may be filled promptly when the bulbs arrive. Orders received last are filled last. This means not only considerable delay, but second choice in bulbs; the first-comers secure the best, the last must take the cullings.
Having ordered your bulbs, proceed at once to make your beds. Better results are obtained by planting Lilies in beds with fibrous-rooted plants, hardy shrubs, and perennials that do not need frequent disturbing. The Lily is very impatient of moisture, and water standing around the roots in winter is absolutely fatal. A raised bed of Peonies affords favourable conditions, provided there is sufficient room between the plants for the Lilies to increase from year to year, as once planted they should not be disturbed. If the Lily-bed is to be by itself an angle of a building, or a portion of the grounds protected by trees, or adjacent shrubbery, on the west and north, should be chosen. Such a site, if well drained, will give good results. The bed should be dug deep and mellow, and enriched with old, well-rotted manure. Strict attention must be paid to this point—only old, well-decomposed manure must be used. The bed should be sufficiently rounded to shed water. Lilium candidum will be ready to ship in August, and should be planted as soon as received. All Lilies are greatly injured by exposure to air, and if it is necessary to keep them out of the ground for any length of time they should be well wrapped in tissue-paper, or otherwise protected. The Japanese protect their great auratum Lily bulbs from the air by encasing them in a ball of clay before starting them on their long journey to the far West. Candidum Lilies make a fall growth of leaves, and must be planted early; no other Lily is as hardy and satisfactory with us as this. They should be planted four inches deep and a foot apart each way, that they may have room to increase, and left undisturbed for years. The soil may be made very rich with manure, but none of it should touch the Lily bulbs. Make a hole of sufficient depth and size, put an inch or more of sand on the bottom, place the bulbs on this and fill up with the sand, packing it closely all around the bulb.
Of the Japanese Lilies, rubrum is most easily grown here and should be planted eight to ten inches deep. Planted deep they are not injured by thawing and freezing, but when too near the surface the frost often throws the bulbs out of the ground. Lilies are not injured so much by freezing as by sudden and frequent thawings.
As long as the rubrum is doing well it should not be disturbed, but if it suddenly fails to grow and bloom the bulbs should be taken up when dormant, and cleansed. Remove all decayed scales and look for worm-nests, which are usually the source of the trouble. Ants sometimes make nests in the Lily bulb in the spring, and cause the top to decay. When this occurs it should be lifted, cleaned, and reset in a place free from ants. The greatest care must be exercised in cleaning bulbs not to injure the sound scales, as that will only induce further decay.
All the speciosum Lilies are exceedingly beautiful. L. Album is one of the finest; its reflexed flowers are a clear, sparkling white with a green band through the centre of each petal, and a peculiar glistening appearance, as though covered with water. It is one of the most easily grown of the speciosum family. S. Roseum is another handsome variety, white flushed with rose, and with dull crimson spots on the white ground; while S. rubrum has large reflexed petals of frosted white, heavily bearded and spotted with rich crimson, with many glistening points of white. Aside from the speciosum Lilies there are many other fine Japanese Lilies, the auratums easily leading in size and beauty. While Krameri is a tube-shaped Lily of a soft pink; longiflorum has lovely trumpets of pure white; the wonderful Lilium giganteum, six to ten feet high, sends up immense clusters of twelve to twenty creamy white flowers, with purple throat. Washingtonianum is another tall variety bearing large clusters of delicate white flowers spotted with black, and the grand and rare Brownii shows a chocolate-purple outside with a creamy interior. The list is long, but with a generous planting of well-selected varieties a succession of bloom may be had from the first blooming longiflorums and candidums in June until auratum and the late speciosums cast their ivory petals in September.
The general treatment of all is the same: deep planting, keeping the manure from actual contact with the bulbs by packing in sand; well-drained soil and the presence of fibrous-rooted or perennial plants near enough to absorb the surplus water from the soil. During the hot weather, give a heavy mulch of lawn clippings brought well up around the stems, and water as needed. If planted deep they will hardly require staking, as the stalks send out surface roots which not only afford nourishment, but also act as a brace to the plant and hold it firmly in its place.
