What was your most fragrant lily this year?

In the spring I'll be adding another bed and I want fragrant lilies as a center piece. It will be surrounding the windows of our breakfast nook so fragrance is my highest priority. I'm looking for ideas and suggestions. Pix would be great too (pix are ALWAYS welcome). I'm considering any color theme. We have a brick house with small white windows surrounding the nook. The area has morning shade and great soil.

Just to start this topic off for you, you should know that not all lilies are fragrant. Asiatics and L/A's are not usually and if they are it is very subtle. Therefore you will need to consider either Trumpets, Orientals or Orienpets (Trumpet-Oriental crosses). I find that lilies painted near the house tend to lean towards the sun and therefore require staking. White pink and reds would look nice mixed together, though. And remember you can extend the bloom season by planting various types. (They generally blossom in this sequence -- trumpets, OT's and then Orientals.) Hope this gives you a place to start...

velnita, if you're interested, there's a lily bulb co-op right now. The stargazer (oriental) and orientpet (trumpet&oriental hybrid) mix are being offered as part of that co-op..

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/771048/

Oh yes, I know there are many lilies that aren't fragrant. They're still beautiful though and sometimes I like the colors even more. I just want the fragrant ones for this area because I love the idea of sitting by the windows with a sweet scent drifting in the windows. I definitely want to mix the lilies to extend the bloom time. I have a basic vision but I don't know which cultivars would be most fragrant. I don't mind staking. I was expecting to stake those closest to the house and any trumpets that I try. I'm just so excited about this bed! Lots of lilies!

I have OT's (Silk Road) and Oriental's (Casa Blanca) in another bed but I haven't tried the trumpets yet. I've been curious about them.

I'll look into the co-op but I really don't understand how that works. I'm a newbie here and have never done anything like that before. Thanks for the link!

There's two different forms of co-op, wholesale pricing or collective purchasing. Like in some with wholesale pricing, you pay the grower and just tell them that it's such&such co-op purchase. In others, people pull their collective purchasing power to bring down the price of the bulbs and the host sends it out immediately when they recieve it.. Like if you buy 5 bulbs, it's like $3+ per bulb but if you buy like 100 bulbs, it's like $1+ per bulb.. That's the one I posted here and that's the one I'm participating in too.. And the more people that buy, the lower the price.. I think the price is at $1.60/bulb now with 75 ordered.. Another 25, the price drops to $1.37/bulb..
Not to worry.. I'm like a newbie since June and you'll catch on quickly too..

One of my favorites to have next to the house, and blooms a bit early is one called 'Elegant Lady'. The fragrance is wonderful, especially in the evening and it multiplies here at a good rate. It's an Easter Lily cross and doesn't get more than 3 and a half feet or so, so no staking required. I think you can still find it at the Lily Nook in Canada.

Thank you so much, magnolialover!
I'll look it up and read about it.

I wish it was something you could find more easily. It blooms in June here (early June)
Here's the easy link
http://www.lilynook.mb.ca/Catalog/Division8.htm#Longiflorum%20x%20Orientals

I've owned Elegant Lady for 3-4 years now and she is just lovely! I don't remember paying that much for it.....I think it was $9.99 for 3 bulbs.

I also have to say the dwarf oriental 'Angelique' has a strong fragrance for such a small lily. This was my first year with it and it grew about 15" tall but had a wow factor on the smell and the bloom!

Definitely, 'Shocking'. It looked beautiful but the scent was heavenly, even better than my favorite Orientals.

Second favorite would have to be, 'Red Hot Lily', which I bought from Dutch Gardens.

Pirl I have to agree about 'Shocking' ....it even glowed at night!

Beyond fabulous!

Pirl, is "Shocking" a oriental or orientpet or trumpet?? Just curious..

Oriental x Trumpet. Hope that helps.

Orientpet.. Nice.. I have some orientpet bulbs coming.. Hope "Shocking" is one of them.. Thanks Pirl.

I'm sure you'll love them. Do you have a list of names for them?

"Shocking" looks great! I think it would look nice in front of the brick of our house. If the weather permits, I'll see if I can get a picture of the bricks it would be in front of. Thanks for the suggestion! Does it usually need to be staked? It would be planted in morning shade.

My 'Shocking' does not need to be staked and is in full sun.

Mine is in full sun, too, and needs no staking.

Ditto here, full sun, no staking.

No stakes here either-full sun

Pirl, I just got some mixed orientpet bulbs coming.. 10 of them for $1.37 each.. :) I'm so excited since I these will be the first "good"fragrant bulbs I got. (Got burned by another company last year, but that's how I found DH here..)

Don't tell me it was that famous (or infamous) company with the MB initials!

nope.. It was the BloomingBulbs co-op here..

Maybe getting burned, as so many gardeners have been, makes us appreciate quality plants even more.

the favorite lilly in my yard is called casablanca. very sweet smelling

OOooo, that's a nice big bunch of lilies!

They do smell wonderful.

I love the smell of Casablanca and yours are beautiful! I have six plants right now and am planning on adding 50 this spring to border our pond area. They're a tried and true favorite! I'm hoping to find other lilies that smell as sweet.

stupid question ...still haven't gotten into lilies...have some on the way but what does L/A mean when referring to a lily

pixie...i should have known i would find you here:) is elegant lady in plant files...it is not coming up for me...

never mind never mind i found it !~!!! yehaw i have to own it:)

This message was edited Sep 26, 2007 8:49 PM

Our house is a 90 year old Arts and Crafts brick bungalow that we bought last year. I think that "Shocking" might look good against the brick. It's a decorative textured brick that has a lot of colors in it but you need to be close to notice all of the different colors. Otherwise it looks like a normal dark red textured brick.

I don't have a picture of the area that I want the lilies in but this is a pix of the front of the house so you can get a general idea of the colors of the brick.

I just love the house! bigcityal from WI has one, too. Wish they had a forum for those beauties so we could all enjoy them.

Once the lilies have bloomed you'll be stuck with bare stems that you can't cut down for quite awhile. Have you planned for anything in front of the lilies to hide the stems?

(I'd hate to hide all that beautiful masonary craftsmanship!)

This message was edited Sep 27, 2007 6:10 AM

Thanks. The house actually still has the farmhouse sink, original cabinets and even the butcher block counter tops. Of course all of the interior wood has been painted--Grrr... We have a total of ten 5-panel oak doors that need to be stripped. It's a lot of work but they're beautiful.

The new bed will be in the back left corner of the house. My idea is to plant lilies in an upside-down Y shape from the left rear corner of the house--sort of like two, two, two, then two spread apart, two spread further apart, and finally two more even further apart. To the right and left sides of the lilies at the base of the Y, I want May Night salvia. Maybe a different kind of lily in the back under the windows (the bottom of the windows are about 5' high). A berm of lavender in the front of the beds on the right and left. A really cool potted plant (?) in the open end of theY (no lavender in front of this area though). And fill in the rest with pretty, fragrant, perennials--I have no idea what until I find the lilies.

If it stops raining today maybe I'll be able to get a pix of that corner. It'd definitely be a "before" pix. It looks ratty back there.

"Before" pictures are supposed to be super awful so when all the plants are in bloom we can sigh collectively over the new beauties.

Absolutely ~ we like to see what is done to the dreadful, dull or boring.

Here is my shade garden one year later. You'll have to open the pic to see the whole thing.

This message was edited Sep 27, 2007 9:07 AM