When to plant in the South

by irene
(Jacksonville FL)

Confused when to plant lilly and iris bulbs in Jacksonville. I hope for spring blooming.

Doug says that ahhh, there's a problem here. Normally we can plant lily and iris bulbous plants anytime in the fall - mid October is fine around USDA zone 4. But your problem in Florida is that you don't have much winter - cool temperatures to force the plant to go dormant and stay dormant. So generally speaking, planting typical Oriental or florist-flower types of lilies is going to be a non-starter. You can plant them and you may get a single bloom but growing them from year to year isn't going to happen. This is the same for all the bulbous iris bulbs that I know about growing.

There are some Southern lilies that will take this kind of temperature regime but I (unfortunately) don't know much about them. Sorry