September 7, 1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
215 
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Manchester Cottagers’ Show (two days). National Dahlia Show. 
[Crystal Palace. Bury St. Edmunds Autumn Show. 
14th Sunday after Trinity. 
[11 a.m. 
Royal Horticultural Society, Fruit and Floral Committees at 
Royal Caledonian Society’s International Show at Edinburgh. 
[Two days. 
LILIUM AURATUM IN THE OPEN BORDER. 
g^VsAHE cultivation of Lilium auratum in pots and 
under glass is now well understood and mode¬ 
rately easy ; but though many hundreds of 
pages have been written on its cultivation in 
England in the open air, the conditions under 
which it will thrive and become permanently 
established are as yet imperfectly understood. For 
those who wish to try it in their gardens the first 
step is to obtain bulbs. Those grown in England from 
seed are to be preferred for many reasons. The chief 
of these is that they need be only a very short time out of the 
soil ; besides, plants from seed generally possess especial vigour 
and vitality until they have attained their full growth ; but 
the price of English bulbs from seed is generally so much higher 
than that of imported bulbs, and the number offered for sale 
in the market so much less, that most gardeners have recourse 
to the latter. For the last year or two the importations from 
Japan of L. auratum have been so large, and the price at which 
they have been sold by auction in London so low, that it has 
been worth while to buy, even to flower once, which, with 
proper treatment, most of them will do. Still, there will 
always be a larger per-centage of failures amongst those planted 
in the open ground than amongst those planted in pots and 
grown under glass. The plant is as hardy as a common Crocus, 
but is liable to decay if soaked with wet whilst dormant in 
winter. Another common cause of failure is thought to arise 
from imported bulbs being often dug up when in full flower and 
before they are ripe, and it is therefore better to obtain bulbs 
in January or February than to buy the earlier importations. 
Having obtained bulbs, the best way to find whether they 
will do well in your garden is to try them in the ordinary soil, 
planting them with the crown about G inches beneath the sur¬ 
face, and placing some very coarse sand or fine gravel round 
them. My habit has been to plant at once in the open ground 
regardless of any consideration of weather. In January, 1880, 
I planted fifty bulbs when the ground was frozen to a depth 
of several inches, only taking care to remove all the frozen 
ground, and to fill up with made soil which was free from 
frost. These Lilies all lived and did as well as those planted 
at any other time. I do not approve of the plan of potting 
the bulbs as a temporary arrangement and planting them out 
in spring, because it is hardly possible to adopt it without 
causing some check to the growth—a matter which I am in¬ 
clined to think more injurious to Liliums than any other plants. 
Liliums started into growth under cover ought not to be ex¬ 
pected to do well unless grown under cover until they flower. 
If as many as 70 per cent, of those planted flower well you 
may consider that the soil suits them, and hope that they may 
become permanently established ; but if less than half of them 
flower, and most of those badly, you should try to find out 
the reason why they fail. If the subsoil is cold clay without 
any artificial drainage, or if the soil is shallow with red gravel 
underneath, or if the subsoil is saturated with water at any 
time of the year within 2 or 3 feet of the surface, it may 
be presumed that any of these causes prevent the Lilies from 
doing well. 
A foot of drainage and 3 feet of good soil is sufficient to 
insure success as far as soil and drainage can do it; but for 
the exact composition of the soil it is difficult to give any rule. 
If the soil is heavy it should be lightened with coarse sand 
and leaf soil, until a spade may be driven into it without diffi¬ 
culty at any time during the driest summer. It is a commoner 
fault in the cultivation of L. auratum to have the soil too 
heavjf and retentive than too light. If the soil is light on the 
surface and deep the bulbs will be encouraged to make long 
roots, and nothing seems more important to the welfare of 
these Lilies than this habit. 
If the bulbs are examined at the end of the first season's 
growth it will be found that many of them have made no roots 
at all from the bottom of the bulb, but only stem roots round 
the base of the flower stalk and above the crown of the bulb. 
These roots nourish the leaves and stalk, but play no part at 
all in forming a new bulb for next year's flowering ; the con¬ 
sequence is that the whole plant perishes as soon as the flower¬ 
ing is over. To establish the plants permanently everything 
should be done to encourage roots below the bulb, and not 
above it; rich soil should be put beneath it, and sand and poor 
soil above it. It is true that by rich top-dressing and surface 
soil you will do much to develope the flowers of the year, but if 
you look forward to next year you must consider how to cause a 
bulb for next year’s flowering to be formed. Some gardeners 
have a theory that the imported bulbs contain the germs of 
two years’ flowering, and that after the second year they will 
die ; but I find that if the stem comes strong and healthy the 
second year the plant is likely to be permanently established. 
If it comes weaker than it did the first year it is likely not to 
appear at all afterwards. 
As regards the position in the garden in which to plant 
L. auratum, we are often told that they like shade ; but the 
more I see of them the more inclined I am to think that in the 
English climate it is not easy for them to have too much suu. 
Shelter no doubt is good, and vacant places in Rhododendron 
beds, where the young growth is sheltered from parching 
winds and spring frosts, are good situations to plant them ; 
but overhanging trees, which encourage damp and cause the 
air to stagnate, are favourable to a disease called “ spot,” which 
destroys the flowering of these Lilies. After trying every part 
of my garden I find that they do best in some exposed beds 
with 3 feet of moderately strong soil mixed with blocks of 
stone, and below that a foot of drainage. There they grow 
not more than from 4 to 5 feet high, making from six to ten 
flowers on a stalk ; but up to this time—namely, the end of 
August, at which the flowering of many is past, they are quite 
healthy. Still, it must be confessed that the English climate, 
with its summer storms of wind and rain, is not quite suited 
for a flower so liable to be damaged by weather as that of 
L. auratum. The petals become blotched, and broken, ai.d 
stained with the brown pollen, and they seldom pass through a 
No. 115.—Yol. Third Series. 
No. 1771.— Vol. LXVIIl., Odd Series. 
