It's a beautiful summer day in the garden where a collection of colorful perennials is in full bloom. There's the bright orange 'Primal Scream', the vibrant 'My Romance', the 'Boogie Woogie' and a glowing 'Moonlight.' All of these lilies are the prized possessions of Barbara Sautner, better known as the Lily Lady.
It's been almost 15 years since the Sautners decided to lose the lawn and grow lilies. From orientals to asiatics, trumpets to tigers, there's always some type of lily blooming in Barbara's garden—from early spring until late summer.
Her favorites are the down-facing lilies (figure A) of the asiatics, orientals, orienpets, trumpets and martagons. Today, she has more than 1,000 varieties, including:
- 'Red Hot'—"The aroma is outstanding!"
- 'Red Volunteer'—A daylily
- 'Double Prize'—A double Oriental
The difference between the daylily and the lily is that the daylily comes with many stems (figure B), lots of foliage that resembles a wide-leaf grass. The lily, meanwhile, comes on one stem that produces all of the flowers. One stem can generate as many as 40 open blooms at a time.
Prize-winning lily blooms can be top heavy, so the stems often need to be staked. That's where Barbara's husband John comes to the rescue. John uses steel rods that he buys from a welding shop then bends them with a vice. He creates a spiral at the top, which holds the stem in place below the bloom.
"One of the best things about growing lilies is that they are very low maintenance, don't need a lot of water and will tolerate about a half of a day of sun," says Barbara. She has three simple tips to get started with lily growing.
Buy quality bulbs. Amend the soil so it drains well. Treat your lilies like tulips—let them die back. If you want to bring a lily indoors, leave two-thirds of the stem in the ground. Here's another quick tip. Be sure to cut off the pollen if you bring lilies indoors, otherwise it can stain your clothes, tablecloth or other textile the pollen might contact.Deadheading is another key to caring for lilies. Deadheading essentially means snipping off dead blooms. Barbara deadheads her daylilies to keep them from going to seed and to keep the garden looking attractive. This is an ongoing task because, as the name implies, daylily blooms last only one day.
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