Planting Lilies
Plant them as soon as you buy them. Letting them sit on dry shelves is not good for them (or for you if you forget to plant them)
Put the base of the bulb – the lower end approximately six inches deep.
Plant the bulbs approximately 10 to 12 inches apart.
Plant the bulb in the sunshine although ideally, you’ve planted it so the tops are in the full sun but the roots are shaded by other plants. Lilies like to have cool “feet”.
You can plant your lily in the garden soil or in containers. It makes no difference to the lily bulb and you’ll enjoy it either way. You can even plant lilies in the rock garden as long as you use Lilium cernuum and L. pumilum because they seldom grow taller than 24 inches.
I always planted my lily bulbs in the perennial flower garden mixed up with the rest of the perennials. They naturalized out there and multiplied. Try planting lily bulbs with Salvia nemorosa and its cultivars, various Aconitum species and cultivars (Monkshood), Anchusa azurea, Erigeron cultivars, Aster amellus, Echinops bannaticus (Globe Thistle), the taller Geranium species, Polemonium caeruleum (Jacob's Ladder) and Veronica longifolia (a Speedwell species). Plants with grey foliage, such as Artemesia species and Stachys byzantina are also interesting combinations.
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