Lilies Add Loveliness

Bring elegance, romance and a touch of exotic to your garden with these slender beauties

- Carol Klein

One of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had recently, when returning to the garden between shows, were lilies in full bloom in the copper bath outside the kitchen door. They were planted last year, a variety called ‘Lady Alice’, with elegant white and pale orange, reflexed flowers on arching stems.

A few weeks later I was greeted by another lily, Lilium regale, with its substantial white trumpets and delicious scent. This is the most popular lily in the world, discovered by the renowned plant hunter Ernest Wilson in Sichuan, China, and eventually introduced by him after a couple of unsuccessful attempts and a broken leg sustained in a rock fall when hunting it down, resulting in his ‘lily limp’.