CHOOSE YOUR LILIES

2 Make your garden heavenly

The stunning flowers of the heavily scented Lilium ‘Stargazer’ open up to reach for the sky.

3 go royal with purple and gold

Plant giant hyssop (Agastache sp) with a tiger lily look-alike, the Asiatic Leichtlin’s lily (Lilium leichtlinii), for drama in your garden.

Cutting o pollen-laden anthers won’t make blooms last longer.

2 3

Flowering from late spring well into the summer months, lilies light up your garden. Here’s how to choose the one for you.

ORIENTAL LILIES

They produce large, outward-facing, lightly fragrant flowers, in white-cream to yellow to pink-burgundy, which open wide and flat – up to 8 per stem – from mid to late summer. Many have freckles or stripes and you can get full double varieties. Grow to 2m.

TRUMPET LILIES

Their large, drooping but showy and intensely fragrant flowers – especially in the evenings – during mid-summer is why they’re called Christmas lilies in Australia or Easter lilies in the northern hemisphere. Up to 6 long, narrow, trumpet-shaped flowers appear on each stem in white, cream, yellow, peach or pink. Grow to about 2m.

4 blow your own trumpet

Lilium

Daylilies (below) are not true lilies, which belong to the Lilium family. Daylilies are in the Hemerocallis family. Liliums grow from bulbs while daylilies have a dense root system. Liliums have prominent upright stalks that carry both leaves and flowers while daylilies have long, strappy leaves growing from the base and flower clusters that grow separately on wiry stems.

5 give a yell out for yellow ORIENPET LILIES

Bear big, open, upwardfacing, fragrant flowers from mid-summer with thick petals in colours ranging from white, gold, pale and deep pink to burgundy, many with speckles, freckles or streaks. Flowers grow up the stem rather than clustering at the top. Grow to more than 1m.

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ASIATIC LILIES

The first to come out in the season, they have little to no fragrance but their colours are the thing, producing large, upward-facing flowers in white, yellow, orange, pink, red and burgundy. Grow to 1m.

TIGER LILIES

Loved for their orangey flowers with black freckles that come out mid-summer, massing at the top of the stem with petals curling curvaceously backwards. Grow to more than 1m. Prefer cool climates.

Wonderfully tolerant of our hot summers, Asiatic lilies will give your garden the look and feel of the tropics with their bright, bold colours.