Most gardeners tend to concentrate their flowering plants and bulbs in perennial borders, and this is a natural tendency since that is what borders are for. However, when it comes to lilies, they are essentially plants best considered in terms of the over-all garden, rather than as part of the border. Use them as you would azaleas – rather than as delphiniums. True, though many are fine border plants they will be even better someplace else. They can be, and should be, to the garden what fine paintings are to a room or translated into sound – what the silvery line of the woodwinds is to the orchestra.
A Garden of Lilies
Once upon a time, in a rural village in northern Vermont, somebody planted a butternut tree. Around it a small garden grew. It has never been a planned garden – rather one that evolved with time and the varying attentions of successive generations. At some point, many years ago, a few bulbs of Lilium hansoni were set out. They were in the sun then, but the old butternut has long since spread out over them so that, in July, literally thousands of the small, recurved, yellow blooms open and sparkle in drifting light and shadow. Needless to say, they are peculiarly lovely and satisfying in this setting.
In Pennsylvania, a more extensive garden with a winding driveway that approaches the house through lightly-wooded slopes. Though it is a large garden and a planned garden, no attempt has been made for formality. There are no clipped hedges. There are no flowering borders – simply great stretches of lawn and woodland that lead off to distant hills. In Spring the sloping grounds that flank the driveway are blazing with the pinks, yellows, mauves and scarlets of azaleas and, as these go by, the lilies take over – great colonies of them scattered here and there. Yellows, apricots, whites, deep reds and violets come and go throughout the Summer. Each new group is unexpected – one comes upon it around a curve or beyond some trees as a special surprise and delight.
A Lovely Maine Garden
Probably the most beautiful, the most perfectly-designed and tended garden I’ve seen is in Maine. Since it is worthy of an article in itself, it can only be touched on here. The garden is large and carved from the woodland on a promontory into the sea. There are broad lawns with ancient trees leading down to the blue water; there are woodland gardens so open that the horizon forms the background; there are secluded gardens where the forests are walls within which are privacy and peace. Azaleas and clematis dominate in their seasons, and great masses of lilies bloom throughout the Summer in all places except the spacious lawns which are kept unbroken.
Quantities of lilies have been planted in great profusion and with infinite skill. In the woodland gardens there are drifts and colonies of them everywhere. Sometimes they appear in the open to give a point of emphasis or color, to sharpen a line or to make a quite unexpected picture of their own. These are largely yellows, whites, pinks and purples. Off through the trees, where they are seen against the blue of the sea, are the more vivid colors: Lilium tigrinum, L. superbum and L. canedense. In the enclosed gardens L. regale and L. ceutifoliunt hybrids have been long established and grow to eight or ten feet against laurel and rhododendron.
Lilium aurdum, L. speciosum, L. canclidum, the Havemeyer hybrid, the Aurelians and an infinite variety of others in soft or brilliant colors are planted by themselves or in borders along the winding paths. They are never crowded, never too close to each other or to other plants so that, always, each group stands out by itself and is seen quite alone.
In Connecticut a contemporary house stands high on a bleak and windswept hill. The surrounding countryside is superb and the hill has been left bare so as not to interfere with the view. The garden is devoted largely to iris and there are long flowing beds of these bucked by low-growing evergreens all along the approaches to the house. Interplanted are L. regale, L. centifolium hybrids, L. auratum. L. xpeciosum and a number of recent hybrids that come into flower after the iris have finished their season, thus completely changing and refreshing the garden picture.
From the descriptions given of actual garden sites, several principles fundamental to the truly fortunate use of lilies in the landscape are clear. The first is simplicity. The lilies are never crowded and never cluttered with other flowering plants nor even with other lilies. The next principle is that the feeling is generally one of display – the lilies are left to stand pretty much alone but, in almost every instance. they rise from a base of foliage. The third principle is that of versatility for, while lilies are dominant, they are flexible in the extreme.
In addition to these observations, lilies can and should be used in the perennial border. However, certain circumstances peculiar to border gardening should be understood. The border is the one place in the garden most frequently re-arranged, and the use of the hoe and spade is an everyday affair. New plants are constantly being added in Fall or Spring when bulbs are dormant, and injury to lilies and other choice bulbs is almost inevitable unless they are carefully marked. Likewise, competition from other plants in the border is keen and the varieties selected should be vigorous, decisive and clear of color. The best lilies for this location are the early Lilium elegans, L. umbellatum group, L. candidum, L. regale, L. aurotum, L. henryi and many of the new hybrids.
Some Pleasing Combinations
Many lilies which are striking when used alone are equally good in combination: L. candidium rising from apricot violas or with delphinium or Thermopsis caroliniana; L. regale with delphinium, with pink polyantha roses against purple Clematis jackmani; L. aural/on with a few pale pink phlox or the second flowering of delphinium, or L. henryi with bronzy helenium and mauve asters.
In placement, certain cultural requirements should be borne in mind. Lilies will, for the most part, take light but not dense shade; they insist on drainage; they prefer space around them; they profit by, but do not insist on, a ground cover. These generalizations together with the garden pictures described give a number of specific ideas.
For the small garden, the following possible uses are suggested:
- 1. Drift lilies under scattered trees on the lawn or in the woodland garden.
- 2. Use them to sharpen a distant corner, give it clarity or bring it into focus.
- 3. Accent horizontal line with long, flowing drifts a the cup-shaped lilies or a vertical line with tiers of turks-caps.
- 4. For bold and clear ranks or masses plant them against a wall or clipped hedge.
- 5. Group your favorite kinds against and through irregularly shaped shrubbery borders.
- 6. Interplant them with peonies or iris.
- 7. Arrange then to rise from low-growing and spreading evergreens.
- 8. Grow them in a border devoted primarily to lilies.
- 9. Place them in a perennial border.
- 10. Finally, wherever and whenever, on the grounds, there is space and need for delicacy, vitality or the particular luminous quality of beauty that only lilies have, that’s the place to plant them.
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