Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: A Reyt Tayty on August 19, 2012, 19:26

Title: Lillies
Post by: A Reyt Tayty on August 19, 2012, 19:26

My lillies have just stopped flowering. Previous advice said to take off the flower heads and leave the stems to just rot down. However, there are new shoots already coming up from the base of some of them. Do I just leave them to it?

Title: Re: Lillies
Post by: sunshineband on August 20, 2012, 12:23

Cut off the flowered section at the top of the stem so that they do not waste energy on seed production, but leave the rest of the stem and any new shoots. These are needed by the plant for stroign up the energy for flowering next year.

A feed of rose fertiliser would be appreciated by them too  ;)

Title: Re: Lillies
Post by: Trillium on August 20, 2012, 15:38

Lilies will always try to throw up new shoots and by cutting off the finished seed head, you give them the energy to propagate.