Lily Show Review

Joe examines the entries at the 150th Lily Show of the New England Lily Society. Lily Shows are one of the best places to find varieties that are rarely seen at garden centers.

Lilium ‘Katinka’, a down-facing pendant Asiatic

A new Trumpet Lily

Last weekend we attended the New England Lily Society Show at the Tower Hill Botanic Garden. I remember both visiting and exhibiting in this Lily show when I was a kid, when the group was called the New England Regional Lily Group, and their shows would be held at the Worcester County Horticultural Society’s Horticultural Hall, a massive space designed in the 19th C. as an exhibition hall for plant enthusiasts. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the hall would be filled with towering stems of fragrant lilies that exhibitors would groom and enter from all over New England. From early in the morning, exhibitors would start arriving, or even the night before, so that they would have time emptying out their vans and station wagons where the tall stems would be transported so carefully with cotton between their buds, or newspaper taped around their stems.

Carefully sorted and then placed in each Class, the lilies would be judged for perfection. I’m not sure if this is one of those things that one romances about from the perspective of the present, and remembers a grander and larger exhibit, but I think I am pretty certain that this current show included many fewer entries and stems of lilies. The reasons are many, first, all plant societies are losing memberships for many reasons, and second, the lily beetle, which is should be another post in itself, for this lady bug look-alike is an invasive species that is destroying many if not most of our lilies, native and hybrid and is the only insect I use insecticide on, and third, lilies are rarely grown since most people buy their plants in the spring, and fall, and usually in-bloom, so they rarely buy summer blooming bulbs like lilies.


Do try true lilies, at one of the Lily mail order nurseries, or visit your local nursery since many now have potted lilies for sale, that are in-bud, and are not much more than actual hybrid bulbs planted in the autumn. If you choose to order bulbs, order them now, and then when they are shipped in October when dormant, they can be placed in the garden for color next summer. Lilies get better with each year, as the bulbs become larger, which is a fun phenomenon to watch. My favorite are down-facing Asiatics, the turks cap types which are hard to find, except at lily nurseries, and the trumpets, which have an incredible fragrance akin to menthol, jasmine and banana all mixed up, summer for my nose!