How To Care For Your Easter Lily
You can enjoy your fragrant Easter lily long after the holiday with these tips, including how to transfer it to the garden!
Did you know that Easter lilies are the fourth largest potted plant crop grown in the US? With Easter approaching, no doubt many homes and churches will soon be graced with the fragrant and lovely white trumpet-shaped flowers, symbolic of spring, purity, and Christ’s resurrection. Good news: you can you your fragrant flower long after the holiday with these helpful tips.
Caring for Your Potted Easter Lilies
To keep your potted Easter lily as its best, it prefers a cool daytime temperature of 60° to 65° F. and nighttime temperatures 5 degrees cooler. To keep the flowers from wilting, avoid placing the potted plant in direct sunlight. Most plants will lean toward the sunlight. To keep the plant growing upright, turn the pot every two days.
Keep the soil moist, but not soggy. Most Easter lilies are sold commercially in pots covered with decorative foil jackets. Remove the pot from the foil covering every time the plant is watered because no water should be left standing at the bottom of this covering. Once the water has soaked into the soil, return the pot to the foil covering.
Also, to help your potted lily thrive, do not place the pot near a direct source of heat. Lilies thrive in a humid climate, more so than a dry one. To create natural humidity, fill a saucer with small pebbles and water and set beneath the potted lily.
How to Transfer Easter Lilies to the Garden
Your Easter lily plant can be introduced into your flower garden for annual enjoyment. Transplant it outdoors once all danger of frost has passed and when the flower stops blooming. Check our Average Frost Date calendar for the dates for your state.
The plant needs to be in well-drained soil, just as it did when it was potted. To provide the needed drainage, add perlite to rich organic soil.
Plant the lily bulbs, roots down, 3” inches beneath the surface of the soil and water. If planting more than one bulb, position them at least 12” inches apart. Cut back the stems once the plant appears dead. This will cause new growth to begin and possibly another bloom this summer. Next year, look for a June or July bloom.
Remember: all lilies are poisonous to both cats and dogs. If you have pets, it’s best to skip keeping lilies in the house. If you must, keep them away from where pets can reach them!
Deborah Tukua
Deborah Tukua is a natural living, healthy lifestyle writer and author of 7 non-fiction books, including Pearls of Garden Wisdom: Time-Saving Tips and Techniques from a Country Home, Pearls of Country Wisdom: Hints from a Small Town on Keeping Garden and Home, and Naturally Sweet Blender Treats. Tukua has been a writer for the Farmers' Almanac since 2004.
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Deborah Tukua#molongui-disabled-link
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Deborah Tukua#molongui-disabled-link
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Deborah Tukua#molongui-disabled-link
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Deborah Tukua#molongui-disabled-link
Have had the most beautiful Easter Lillies blooming from Easter through now and it’s neatly late fall now .
My lily has grown back after being “near death”. It is now close to 18″ tall with 2 large buds. It’s beautiful and very healthy. I’m just worried about the height. Is it getting too tall or should I just enjoy it and not worry?
Two years ago I was given an Easter lily. After it bloomed I cut it back and stuck it in with another plant and forgot about it. Today it is 12 in tall and is about to bloom. Who would of thought?
Thanks for posting this blog. My son bought me Easter lilies and they are beautiful. The problem- everything I’ve ever attempted to grow has always died. So, I’d given up trying years ago. Yet, somehow, in all her beauty, in the midst of all the feelings fear, anxiety, despair and loss during this global coronavirus pandemic, she blooms bright as a symbol of hope and gratitude. She inspired me to try again. I promised my son I do everything I could … and she would prosper. Unfortunately, I relied on my limited knowledge … plants need sunlight and water. She was doing great for the 1st two weeks … I placed her close to sunlight & didn’t over water her. All her buds bloomed, she sprouted new ones. I noticed she was leaning towards the sunlight on my patio, so I turned her around. Then it snowed on day, and I fired up the furnace. I continued my routine but a few days later I noticed some of flowers beginning to wilt and a few leaves turning brown. I surmised it was more than likely due to overcrowding in the pot and it needed to be replanted. Then I looked up & realized I’d placed her directly below one of my heating vents. I had literally been dehydrating her, OMG. I moved her immediately. Removed any dead leaves and flowers that were dying & misted and watered her. I still made sure she had access to ☀️ but she’s still dying. I decided to consult seek the advice of an expert and found your article. I’m glad I did. Hopefully, I can still save her. Now I know why the Bible tells us to “lean not on our own understanding.” We only know what we know, but we don’t know what we don’t know until we know what we didn’t know.
Hi Jlynn, glad you found it useful!
Can Easter Lillies be grown inside, instead of outside?
We have recently bought our first home and in the garden are lilies but they are wilted over and laying on the ground and the steams are yellowish. Is there any way of saving them or are they dead,
More of a question than a comment….
Can Easter Lillies be re-grown in a pot indoors or must they always be planted outdoors after their first “potted” bloom in order to enjoy them year after year?