I have a ton of pink tall trumphet lilies, I read you are suppose to wait until fall, I can't wait they have taken over and the gardens are a mess, sides trees have grown too big and some of the trumphets are leaning so they need to be moved.
I am digging them up and planting them in pots, cutting off the blooms and putting them in a vase for me...rofl. The ones in pots I plan on giving to friends or swapping or something this fall.
Has anyone ever done this before? Is this going to work? Can you give me any suggestions?
Thank you
potting up trumphet lilies now, can't wait until fall
Sure, you can do it ~ just begin digging wider and deeper than just near the clump. Try to disturb the soil around the roots as little as possible, pot them up quick and they won't miss a beat. Be sure to use pots with good drainage and large enough that won't be toppled by those tall stems. Good luck!
Moby's advice is perfect. I have lilies in pots all over, many of which came out of one particular bed. Make sure to see if your container has a "saucer" that covers the drainage holes. If there is a cover over the bottom holes, just pull it off. I get a lot of inexpensive containers from HD and WM, both round and oblong. If you cannot get the bottom off, use the assistance of a screwdriver or knife. They all come off. The first time I containerized lilies in a window box with a bottom, they rotted. They can take a lot of abuse, but they don't like wet feet.
All of these containers are plastic and came with a drip "thing" of one sort or another, and they were all "cheapies." The plants all thrive, as you can tell by the pot of yellow lilies.
I did the same thing last year. I had a TON of trumpet lilies, and I must have dug up 30 or so and put them in pots. That was in June and July, when it was really boiling. The house was on the market, and many of them were in major bud. And they all bloomed in the pots! This is early to mid-July, a year ago. All of these lilies are in pots. They were all dug up in June.
Some of them are actually in pots with roses
Did I understand you overwintered them in pots? I really need to do that.
I dug them out of the pots in December (it was very mild here), cleaned them, put them in zip lock bags with a little seed starting mix and put them in the refrigerator. In April I pulled the out and planted them. That way I was dealing with something small. I was dealing with 71 lilies. I only lost one. I was imitating the way lilies are sent to me in peat in spring. They have been overwintered.
I DID overwinter a Silk Road that was in a pot with the rose in the garage. I didn't take the bulb out until April, and it was huge. I could do that because the mass of the pot was large enough to handle the cold. (No fruits that produce gas, like apples or pears with them please!)
If your garage gets really cold I would not trust the garage. My 40 degree refrigerator worked beautifully. But I would be concerned if I put them in the garage and the temps went to 0. I have overwintered roses (in large pots) and beginner shrubs in small pots in the garage, putting quilts around them and giving them a bit of water once a month during the winter. But I don't think I would risk it with bulbs as small as lilies unless I had a large mass of soil around them.
Donna