Pink Lilies

Photo - Sandra Ross

These tiger lily bulbs turned up on my desk last year (from Tesselaars) so I planted them across the front of our Garden Clinic HQ in spring, alongside that gorgeous rose ‘Pierre de Ronsard’ that cartwheels across the bull nose veranda. 

The lily is a variety called Lilium lancifolium ‘Pearl Jessica’. The result was so brilliant that I lay prostrate on the path in order to photograph the downward facing flowers. The colour, especially backlit, of these soft peachy pink blooms with chocolate freckles, is … well it’s a triumph that the photograph doesn’t demonstrate. And they flower for a long time: the display lasted for weeks. I’m looking forward to November when we should have even more blooms as the bulbs will have multiplied since last year. Which reminds me, I’d better go out and feed them! Lilies are my all-time favourite cut flower; they last for weeks and many are deliciously fragrant. They love the sun so don’t plant them in too much shade and don’t overwater them or they will rot. Feed the new growth as it emerges in early spring.