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Easter Lily
by Pamela
Kock |
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Easter
morn with lilies fair
Fills the church with perfumes rare,
As their clouds of incense rise,
Sweetest offerings to the skies.
Stately lilies pure and white
Flooding darkness with their light,
Bloom and sorrow drifts away,
On this holy hallow'd day.
Easter Lilies bending low
in the golden afterglow,
Bear a message from the sod
To the heavenly towers of God.
-Louise
Lewin Matthews
Each spring,
over 12 million Easter Lilies are delivered to retail outlets.
The Easter Lily, or Lilium longiflorum, is grown
from bulbs and forced, under artificial conditions, to bloom in
the springtime. It
makes a spectacular gift, as the time-honored flower of Easter.
It’s symbolic of resurrection, since it starts out as a
brown scaly bulb that looks dead…then leaps into majestic, white
blooms.
Some
interesting trivia about Easter Lilies:
- Lilium
longiflorum is native
to the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.
- As
a result of World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
Japan no longer sold Easter Lily bulbs to the United States,
and the U.S. began its own Lily industry.
- 95%
of all Easter Lilies come from ten farms in the Pacific
northwest.
- The
most common cultivar is “Nellie White”.
- It
takes 3-4 years of growth in the field before Easter Lily
bulbs are ready for commercial sale.
In the store,
look for lily plants that are fragrant and well-proportioned, and
have buds in different stages of bloom.
Lots of dark green foliage is an indication of a healthy
plant; don’t buy any that seem wilted.
Remove the
yellow anthers as soon as the blooms open up.
The flowers will last longer that way, and the pollen
won’t stain the white petals. Remove wilted flowers as soon as they begin to fade.
Keep your lily plants in a cool environment, between 60-65
degrees F. Blooming
lilies like bright indirect light.
Water moderately; let it dry out slightly between waterings.
When the
lily finishes flowering, cut off any remaining withered blooms and
continue to care for the potted plant in a sunny location.
When there’s no longer a danger of frost, you can plant
the lily outside in your garden.
Plant the bulb 3 inches beneath soil level, and water
thoroughly. Mulch the
garden around your lily to maintain an even soil temperature.
They bloom naturally in the summer, but you might have to
wait till next year to get another round of blooms.
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