From: billmc@microsoft.com (Bill McJohn)
Subject: Re: questions: lilies, containers, etc.
Date: 19 Oct 92 18:39:23 GMT

...
Lilies are excellent container plants.  Their principal requirement
is good drainage, which is easy to provide in pots.

I potted up a mob of lilies and tulips last fall.  I planted tulips
in 7" clay pots [about 7 bulbs per pot]; asiatic lilies in #1 polycans
(6" deep and 7" diameter, one bulb per pot); and oriental lilies in
#2 polycans (again, 1 bulb per pot).  I used a commercial compost/peat/
perlite mixture, and mixed a tablespoon of bone meal into the bottom
inch or two of each pot.  Then I watered the whole lot well put them
in the garage over the winter.  (I live in Seattle, which has fairly
mild winters)  In the spring, I took them out, let them get acclimated
in a shady spot, and then moved them into sun.

The results were great.  In fact, the lilies in pots were more
satisfying than most of the ones in the garden, because they were
up where I could admire them.  Another advantage (which I realized
too late for any but the last to bloom) was that I could grow them
in full sun, to get nice compact plants, and then move them into
shade when they flowered, to prolong the bloom.  Finally, once they
had bloomed, I could set them aside to ripen.

Now that planting time has rolled around, I knocked them out of the
pots to see how the bulbs had fared.  The tulips hadn't formed good
bulbs, so I tossed them on the compost heap, but the lily bulbs were
a good size and looked nice and plump, despite not having been watered
since they flowered, so I repotted them to see how they do next year.

This was all done with minimal care--I watered the growing plants when
I remembered to, didn't fertilized them (except for that initial
shot of bone meal), and generally didn't take particularly good care
of them, yet they bloomed just fine and made bulbs for next year,
too.  With better maintenance, I'm sure you could have a really
good display with lily bulbs increasing in size (and flower production)
year by year.

Disclaimer: The file contained in the box above or displayed in a separate window from a link in the box above is NOT owned nor implied to be owned by BeYoND THe iLLuSioN. Most files at BeYoND THe iLLuSioN are originally from public Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were popular in the days before the Internet or from gopher, web, and FTP sites from the early days of the Internet which no longer exist today. Essentially, all files were acquired from the public domain in one for or another.

However, there have been occasions when copyright protected material has appeared on BeYoND THe iLLuSIoN without permission of the copyright holder. In these instances, we have and will continue to remove the copyright protected file as soon as it is brought to our attention. This can now be done using our Report Copyright Material form. Fill out the form, and the webmaster will be notified of the situation.

There are also times when files found on BeYoND THe iLLuSioN have a real home somewhere else on the Internet. In these instances, we will gladly replace the file with a link to its true home whenever it is brought to our attention. If you know of the true home of any of these files, you can use our Report Original URL form to bring it yo our attention.