LILIES IN A TOWN GARDEN IN THE NORTH. 



385 



LILIES IN A TOWN GARDEN IN THE NORTH. 



By George Yeld, M.A., F.R.H.S. 



" Lilies did you say ? Oh, yes, they are beautiful things, no doubt, but 

 ^miffy' — I can do nothing with them." This is the tone, if these are 

 not the actual words, in which the ordinary town gardener in the North 

 will talk of Lilies. Nor do I much wonder at it. When people speak of 

 the glories of Lilies in the South of England the words come naturally 

 to the lips of us poor Hyperboreans, to describe the Southron's garden, — 



Oh, richly soiled, and richly sunned, 

 Exuberant, fervid, and fecund. 



And we are tempted to add — if we had your climate we might grow 

 Lilies as you do. Yet with all our disadvantages I have derived much 

 pleasure from the attempt to grow Lilies in a York town garden, and, as 

 I believe that most gardeners can say with truth. 



In nature's infinite book of secrecy 

 I can a little read 



(though I am not so sure about myself as I was a few years ago), I 

 propose to deal very briefly with my experiences as a grower of Lilies. 



I must premise that my garden, while it has the usual disadvantages 

 of the North in poverty of sun and warmth, and excess of dampness, 

 possesses one distinct advantage — it is well sheltered. The taller trees of 



Fig. 198.— L. Martagon. 



my neighbour's large — I might almost say park-like— garden, and my own 

 shrubs form a very effective protection, and the wind does me very little 

 mischief. Even the gale that laid low the tents at the York Gala in 

 1898 wrought me very little damage. Then, again, I spare no trouble in 

 getting in new soil — without it, indeed, I should despair of growing Iris 

 and Ilemerocallis, let alone Lilies. Add to this careful attention to the 

 plants themselves, and you have all that can be said in the garden's 

 favour. 



As to the Lilies which I find comparatively easy to manage : the 



