My Favourite Lily: Madrid

I am a big fan of Lily. Every time one opens in my garden I think, hmmmmmm, that might be a favourite. Then midway through lily season 'Madrid' opens and blows them all away. I am instantly reminded why she is and remains my favourite lily.

Her flowers are huge and there are always a lot of them. They open tall, almost eye level. She is a hot, bright orange that is translucent and neon all at once when the sun shines through her petals. She catches your eye in the garden no matter how far you are standing from her even with the myriad of colours she is competing with at that time of the season.

I have her in 2 spots now and I have already scoped out the third. If I am really lucky, when I dig and divide, I will end up with 4 or 5 spots!

A flurry of unexpected p!nk

When I first started gardening, pink was my colour. Everything I bought and planted was pink. Then I fell in love with something orange and everything changed. Although yellow was the last colour I came around to, today you can find every colour bloom in my garden except coral, or salmon, whichever you prefer to call it. To me it is one colour. That odd colour that in pale or dark shades, looks good with no other colour. I admit, I have often thought of planting a single colour border in those shades because what gardener wants to be missing a colour? lol.

Recently, a flurry of unexpected pink has arrived in my garden. I was certain my Acapulco lily was lost, yet here it is blooming up a storm! There are 2 pink daylily, neither of which was expected. 1 was given to me as yellow and while it has yellow, it is very pink from a distance. The other I have still not been able to figure out what it is or where it came from. My map is either incomplete or wrong. Hazzards of rushing to get everything in before snow. Every summer, I come to regret my lack of recordkeeping in the fall.

This rush of pink has renewed my appreciation for pink flowers and had me doodling pink patches into the map that I might want to add.

The Start of Lily Season

The lily have started opening here. My early orange have been open for a week and Linda's Digby Yellow shortly followed. I have been looking forward to Lily season this year because I have no idea what is left out there for Lily. It is mostly going to be a surprise.

Lots of Lily Blooming Now

 

Oriental White from Kelly, growing in the slide garden. This one is about 12 inches tall. lol.

 

Lily 'Madrid', my favourite lily in my garden and I have it in the nursery, in the drive garden and in the sun garden.

 

Lily 'Northern Dazzle', growing at the front lower level and in the back sun garden.

 

Lily, 'Northern Carillon', growing in the sun gardens and blooming for the first time. All the Northern series lilies were added just last year.

 

Lily 'Stargazer' has been growing in the bird sanctuary for a few years now. Still not sure how I feel about this one. It's pretty but it has a really strong lily scent and if the patch gets too big, I can't walk by it without wishing it was smaller.

 

Lily 'Northern Star', my favourite of the Northern series added last year. At least, it is my favourite so far... still waiting for Northern Sensation to open.

The Red Scourge

Even before I was a gardener I loved lilies. Now I have lots of them! For the past 4 years, we've been devastated with red lily beetles and this year they are starting really early. It's pretty obvious from this picture that they just destroy the lily plants soon as they start growing. This is just the first stage, even worse is the larvae.

A Lily Plan

My 'Stargazer' Lily is just finishing up for this year. This is its' second season in this spot and it seems happy in front of the ninebark on the lower level of the bird sanctuary. Not far from it is a 'Navona' Lily in white. This year, I decided that I would add the pale pink of 'Renoir' to this area with them. I think it will really make the 'Stargazer' shine next season.

Lily

It has been a rather interesting year for my lily... and Linda's yard. Last fall in anticipation of our move, I sent Linda some of all my lily. In fact, I sent whole gardens of lily! Kelly planted them in a temporary place where they all came up and many of them bloomed. They were crowded but from the pictures I saw, they also looked happy. What it meant for my garden was that there were very few lily left. Although my orange lily garden was still big and beautiful, this 'Acapulco' was the only pink lily that came up in what was the pink lily garden. I moved it into the garden proper since the pink lily garden is now lawn and it didn't miss a beat. It was full of blooms on only two stalks, reminding me how much I love lily in the garden. I can't wait for more variety next year. Linda shipped me lily this week and it should arrive today. Now, where to plant...

Voodoo Lily

This bloom has been 4 years and 2 bulbs in the making.  Only my husband would want to grow a flower that smells like carcass!  Apparently it will smell as it is pollinated by flies - but I haven't caught a bad odour yet.  This is one of a few 'first times' in our garden this year.  aka Dracunculus vulgaris

Can't you smell that smell?

Contrary to what people who introduced us thought would happen, Linda and I agree on almost everything. Where we disagree though, we tend to be at totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Enter the Lily. Linda prefers Oriental to Asiatic and this year, mentioned to me that she is considering sticking to only Oriental for future additions to her garden. Linda does have Lily problems in her garden that I do not have to contend with in mine so I will leave it to her to outline her preference. I however, prefer Asiatic and when these Stargazer Orientals started blooming, I began to consider only adding Asiatic to my garden in future. This Spring, I received 25 Stargazer Oriental Lily. I gave a couple away to another gardening friend and planted the rest all in the same garden, in three patches, to both sides of the path. They are blooming now and look awesome. The buds start green, turn bright white and open to this blinding pink. I can see them from the front deck which is an added bonus for anything blooming in the lower level of that garden. I can't say enough about how bright and cheery they are in the garden. Lots of people tell me that Stargazer are not spectacular for Oriental Lily but they look pretty darn beautiful to me. The problem is the smell. I find the smell very disagreeable and if I am standing in it too long, it can even give me an upset stomach. I had a friend in my garden last week that mentioned that same thing as we walked through this spot. She agreed that the smell is both strong and sickening. Since she mentioned it before she knew how I felt about Oriental Lily scent, I know I am not alone. The Asiatics typically do not smell and if they do, it is not the same cloying kind of scent that I find so overwhelming with the Orientals. I am keeping these Stargazer and they can stay right where they are as long as they don't get to the point where I can smell them on the front deck. If that happens, they will need to be moved further from the house so it is a good thing they are so bright. As I suggested to Linda, she will just have to be my Oriental Lily expert and I will try to do that for her with Asiatics. As soon as I buy another book ;)