Enjoy photos of my all-time favorite #flower, the Tiger Lily. In this post, I'll provide a personal narrative of my own experience growing Tiger #Lilies during a major change in my life, and a little background knowledge about this flower if you are interested in getting started.

There are dozens of photos!

Skip to the end, or save the reading for later. It's your choice.

July 25, 2015

My Story

For about four years I have been growing these exciting and exotic #orange flowers in my garden. At my last home, in the photo above, I planted the bulb under a persimmon tree where they got shade half the day, and full sun the other half of the day.

The first year I planted these lily #bulbs I had never grown a bulb flower before. The instructions on the label said to dig a hole 12 inches deep and fill with loose soil. Keep them watered on hot days, but do not over-water. I followed the instructions exactly, and arranged them the holes for the six bulbs in a half circle to border around the base of a persimmon tree.

The first year, I had these weird grass-like stems that came up where I planted the bulbs. The stalks did not get very tall, they were brittle, and soon withered. No flowers.

I had failed. 😞

... or so I thought!

The second year, they came back with a feral vengeance. All six made stalks this time, each growing tall.

One snapped because someone accidentally walked backwards onto it. Once they snap, they do no grow back that year.

Many of my flower stalks had two, three, or even four buds on them, producing full flowers.

And then we had to move.

It wasn't until March when the flowers were starting to emerge from the soil, that we finally found a house to buy, and we were anxiously awaiting for the sale the go through.

Usually it is not advisable to dig up flower bulbs after they emerge, because you might disturb the roots to much, and that can affect the health of the plant. I had no choice though. Either dig them up, or say goodbye to them forever.

So I got out my shovel, and dug up all of the Tiger Lily bulbs, and also Mom's Asiatic Lilies and put them into 10-inch pots layered with coconut coir, to act as a potting soil.

To my surprise, they actually continued to climb up in height.

By April 8, 2016 we had moved into our new home. I spent an entire day transporting all of my plants down the street to the new home, not far from were we lived. I think I had to walk about five miles that day pulling my little wagon of tall, tippy #plants. The neighbors were amused by the spectacle.

I had to let the plants remain in the pots, because they had already grown to full height. What I learned is these actually grow very well in potted containers. In fact, the compact root space helps hold the stems stay upright better than they would be if growing in the ground.

A close relative to the Tiger Lily, but a totally different #plant.

This is an orange Asiatic Lily.

They are grown the same way, but they have more leaves clustered around the stalk. The flowers are bigger, and the petals open up like a star. #Asiatic Lilies are not scented. It is tempting to take a sniff to check, but careful. You might end up with an orange-stained nose, because the pollen on the anthers will dye your skin.

Asiatic Lilies bloom a month earlier than Tiger Lilies, in early summer.

The easiest way to tell them apart is by the flower angle. Asiatics always aim up to the sun. Tiger Lilies always aim down.

Meanwhile, the Tiger Lilies were starting to put out buds a few weeks later. Only an idiot would try to plant these in the yard at this stage. I was always nervous having to pick up the pots and move them around the deck every time Mom or Dad shoved them the side to they could use the lawn furniture with the large shade umbrella that was always getting knocked over in the strong wind. These stems are so fragile, they will snap and break instantly if pressed.

Victory!

By Mid-July they had fully bloomed. They looked even healthier and more vibrant than the last year. Success!

Once the #stalks die back, I would find an appropriate location in our front yard to plant the bulbs in their new forever home.

#Tigrinum Splendens is the Latin name for this variety of Lily. It is recognizable for the petals that curl backwards, and the vivid leopard-print spots that speckle the front. The petals a slightly more translucent than Asiastic Lilies, because you can see the sunlight glowing through them on a sunny day. Some people call the flower a Turkish Cap because it resembles the shape of a big puffy turban.

Something fun that new gardeners and children may enjoy, is that Tiger Lilies form small bulbils along the stalks. They look like little black marbles, and they can be plucked off with small fingers, and planted in the soil to start growing new flowers. Each stem will form dozens of #bulbils. They may not form into a plant for a few years, but you might find some little grass-like leaves that show up in Spring.

Lilies also form new plants through division. When the bulbs become extra large, sometimes they will split and become two separate bulbs, and each will form a new plant. Some people use their hands to break off the bulb pieces into separate scales, to multiply the plants, but this may take years for the plant to recover from. Once the bulb eventually stores up enough energy and size, it will produce a stalk with beautiful blooming flowers again.

Tiger Lilies symbolize wealth and prosperity.

They have a slight scent that is unique to lilies. Slightly sweet.

Smelling them, they say will give you freckles.

Tiger Lilies attract butterflies and birds.

They are extremely #toxic to cats and house pets, and can cause death if they eat it. I do not own any cats, because I am allergic to them. The street cats tend to not mess around with the lilies. They have some medicinal properties, but I don't recommend eating it.

When I first planted these into the yard, I dug some holes along the fence, and I used the pots to mark where I had planted them.

People thought this looked kind of silly. For me, I was just trying to mark my territory, because my mother was taking a sudden competition-like interest in buying more tulip bulbs, shrubs, and roses than we knew what to do with. She has a habit of bossing my dad around sometimes, and telling him to plant her items in any open space in the yard she finds. I really did not want her to dig up my bulbs a few weeks after I planted them, so marking their buried locations was a critical strategy on my part.

Even though I planted them fairly evenly in a line, they don't always grow up that way. The first year, they came up in sort of an irregular spacing. I am not sure if all the bulbs survived, or they might not have as much energy as they did last year.

By May 2017, they were looking super healthy again.

As you can see, Tiger Lily tends to lean, quite a bit actually. They grow up like tipping towers. The planting instructions that come with the bulbs states, "Lilies prefer their feet in the shade and their faces in the sun."

The Tiger Lily was also sometimes called the Ditch Lily because it would grow out from ditches. This makes sense, because the slope of the ditch helps the stem lift the bloom up to the sunlight for full effect.

My Lilies are growing on more of a hilltop shaped slope, so that doesn't really help them stand up at all.

So, I opted to use this old flower pot with a dead tree trunk still inside it to help keep the Lilies up off of the ground.

In late Spring of 2018, the Arborists came and cut down our dilapidated Cherry Tree, and they were preparing to dump a TON OF WOODCHIPS directly on top of these flowers and my new vegetable 3x3 foot garden patch that already started sprouting seeds.

The best I could do was use some bamboo poles and some green grafting tape to mark out where the Lilies were growing. They threw a plastic tarp over the garden patch.

Fortunately everything survived, and nobody crushed the plants. I left the bamboo stakes, as they seemed to be a good way to help the plants stay more upright.

So here were are with the final results in July, 2018.

I told you so. Tiger Lily is my favorite flower. Now you know how much I really like this flower.

Sources:

• https://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/aboutflowers/wildflowers/tiger-lily

Bonsai!

Sunday, July 22, 2018

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This post is further evidence of one of the reasons I continue to love Steemit so much. They have to host ALL of my gardening photo updates for me, free of charge, and then pay me so I can take all the credit.

Life is so sweet!