Noe ilies 
m By JAN DE GRAAFF 
REVOLUTION is going on in the lily world. In ten 
short years, not one race of new lines has been 
raised, but many; enormous improvements have 
been made in disease resistance and tolerance 
to drought and heat. New vigor and size, new colors and 
forms, have been added. To grow some of them and to 
see what they will do in your garden is a revelation. 
In one West Coast garden, an oval lawn surrounded 
by a wide border of low, hardy rhododendrons has such 
lilies. Some are tall, some short; some have pendent flow- 
ers, others have blooms that face outwards or up. They 
range from purest white through ivory and yellow to 
orange, red and deepest maroon, from pale violet to purple 
and from pink and salmon to wine- and purple-red. They 
come in every color except blue, any shape that can be 
formed with six petals and any height from 6 inches to 
more than 6 feet. They bloom from spring to fall. 
That scene, with but slight variations, can now be re- 
produced in most of our forty-eight states and in every 
country in the Northern Hemisphere. Within our reach, 
there are lilies for every climate and every purse. Most 
of them are new, startlingly so—fresh from the breeder’s 
trial grounds. 
Others have been with us for quite a while, and merely 
needed a postwar breathing spell to allow for substantial 
production. Still others have simply been neglected and 
maligned, because they were considered difficult and tem- 
peramental. With newer knowledge of lily growing at 
hand, I urge you to try them again. Go to a reliable dealer 
and get healthy, well matured and plump bulbs with good 
roots and see if they don’t behave this time. 
Among kinds that are now available in quantity after 
an absence of some time are L. amabile and L. amabile 
luteum, L. concolor, L. martagon album, L. davidi Max- 
will. And the “difficult” ones, that you can now find in 
stock of good quality, are such things as L. speciosum 
rubrum, L. speciosum album, L. auratum platyphyllum, 
L. leucanthum and L. sulphureum. 
Lilies have beauty beyond compare. Poets have sung 
their praises for thousands of years. They’re native in 
America in a glorious variety of forms and colors. But 
for a long time, they were not happy in gardens. Like all 
wild plants, they disliked the climates and surroundings 
we subjected them to; they grew and thrived in their 
wild habitat and nowhere else. We needed garden lilies 
that would be permanent, that would grow in good clumps 
with many sturdy stalks and masses of flowers. We wanted 
a blaze of color from afar and detailed perfection when 
seen close to. Most lilies could not meet these terms. 
There were a very few exceptions. Any reader can 
name them: Madonna, Tiger and Candlestick lilies. Their 
adaptability is due to the fact that they had been “domes- 
ticated”’ long before they arrived on our shores. The 
Madonna lily, L. candidum, was cultivated 2,000 years 
before the birth of Christ, and is, without any doubt, the 
oldest known cultivated garden plant. Tiger lilies, which 
the Chinese have grown for ages, and Candlestick lilies 
have also developed the kind of strength that comes of 
surviving against all obstacles for so long. 
Hybrid Vigor 
The Candlestick lilies have another source of strength 
—they are hybrids of several widely varying species. 
Crossing wild L. dauricum from China with L. croceum 
from Europe, Dutch growers raised hybrids with bright, 
cheerful flowers and good growth. Japanese gardeners 
also did some work with L. dauricum, crossing it with 
the little, upright, star-shaped, vivid red L. concolor. 
These Candlestick lilies, incidentally, although still being 
called L. umbellatum and L. elegans by many people, have 
been more accurately renamed L. hollandicum and L. 
maculatum. 
These strains derive their strength from their wild 
ancestors, inheriting vigor and disease-resistance from 
both parent stocks. They have hybrid vigor. In this factor 
we find another clue to the lilies’ needs. Either they must 
have hybrid vigor or they must derive a similar strength 
and endurance from centuries of garden culture. Obvi- 
ously, the latter conditions cannot prevail in new varie- 
ties. For them, hybrid vigor is of the essence. 
Neither hybrid vigor nor survival of the fittest can, 
however, entirely explain the revolution in the lily world. 
Important factors are new propagating methods, better 
understanding of the lily’s requirements, and the many 
new fungicides and growing aids. The recent research 
in lily genetics has also caused big changes. 
New propagating methods mean healthier bulbs. We 
have always been able to reproduce lilies in many ways. 
One long-used method is to detach the loose scales of the 
bulb at flowering time or shortly after, and store them 
properly in moist sand. Then each scale will produce one 
or more bulblets. Another familiar way is to use stems, 
heeled in and broken off at the same time; these also will 
yield bulblets. They are also formed on the underground 
part of the stem and in some lilies aerial bulbils are 
formed in leaf axils. All these methods have been used to 
multiply the lily. 
Since lilies grown in this manner are an actual part of 
the bulb they were raised from, they inherit any disease 
or inherent weakness. As the quantity of bulbs increased, 
so did the ratio of exposure to diseases and, as time went 
on, quality suffered. 
Lilies From Seed 
Lilies can also, however, be propagated from seed. 
Thanks to a safeguard that nature has given plants, dis- 
eases cannot usually be carried over in seed. If further 
pains are taken and seed is saved from only the prettiest, 
healthiest and sturdiest plants, then these qualities will 
almost certainly be perpetuated. This is something that 
has only recently been recognized. In it, lily growers have 
found a means of producing stock of unparalleled health. 
Health is also improved by better understanding of 
plants’ needs. As more growers, professional and ama- 
teur, studied the lily’s habits, they found that many old 
notions were questionable. Some experts had said deep 
planting was needed for many varieties; others recom- 
mended shade; still others that the roots be trimmed 
