OPINION: St. Joseph’s Lily – a white beauty

Known as the St. Joseph, November and Easter Lily, Lilium Longiflorum’s trumpet-shaped petals are filled with an intoxicating scent that injects a room with sweetness, and its long stems (up to a metre high) mean that St. Joseph’s lilies really can fill up an interior space without much effort.

Plant these bulbs in full sun to semi-shade between May and August and you could have flowers from September through to January, making the spring and summer months in your garden. Make holes 8cm deep and 15cm apart for each bulb, in soil that is carefully considered to be cool, with a good percentage of humus and good drainage. If necessary, start off the process by digging a deep hole in the area you wish to plant and mixing sand and compost (and even well-decomposed manure if necessary) into the soil. End off the planting process by watering the ground and adding a top layer of mulch to keep it all cool and moist, and to protect the bulbs from frost in very cold areas.

During summer, when your St. Joseph’s lilies are growing at their fastest rate, feed the soil with fertiliser and insert stakes in the ground (being careful not to stake the bulbs themselves) to support the stems. At the end of the flowering season, and once the stems have yellowed and been cut off and discarded, you may leave the bulbs in position in the ground, as these floral beauties thrive when left in the same spot for five years, on condition that they receive adequate nutrition.

Nutrition being a key factor, it’s also important to bear in mind that when cutting your white blooms to place in vases, you should cut the stems 30cm above the ground in order to retain some leaves for photosynthesis to continue. You provide the water every four days for 40 minutes at a time, and the sun will take care of the rest.

Information supplied by Hadeco Bulbs.