We will begin with Lilium Candidum, the Madonna or Cottage Lily. You know it, of course: the big white lily that the Madonna, and sometimes the angels, carry in old pictures, and that you see at its best in cottage gardens. All gardeners ask each other ‘Why do we see great healthy clumps of this lovely Lily in poor little neglected cottage gardens, while in our highly-fed and carefully-tended ones it gets the now well-known Lily disease?’ We hope your Madonna Lilies will not get it, because it is rather heart-breaking to watch its ravages. In the spring you see fine, healthy leaves, and you look forward to the tall stems that will arise from them and bear great scented, shining white flowers. But one day you notice that the leaves look rather brown. A stem has shot up, but the leaves on it look brown, too. Every day it seems to get browner and flabbier, and at last you cut it down because it is so unsightly. Sometimes these sick stems bear sick, half-decayed Lilies, but they give you no pleasure. A healthy Dandelion is far more beautiful.

One of the best amateur gardeners we ever knew used to say that there were some plants that throve on neglect, and we really believe that the Madonna Lily is one of them. The cottager who puts some healthy bulbs in dry soil, and leaves them there year after year, gets better flowers than the gardener who fusses and feeds them. There seems to be no doubt that the Lily disease has its best chance in a low, badly drained soil that holds moisture. If you can give your Lilies a dry, well-drained position, you will probably succeed with them. Buy your bulbs from a good firm, dust them well with flower of sulphur, plant them about five inches deep and nine inches apart in sand, and then never interfere with them again. Remember that their flowers will last longer if not exposed to the full midday sun, but do not plant them near the roots of the trees, or where rain cannot reach them. They require rain, but not stagnant moisture. Three bulbs together make a nice clump, and they would look well in the centre of your border. The leaves die down in winter, and when the new ones come in spring, you must look out for slugs. If you have many, surround your Lilies with lime, soot, or wood ashes. Mr. J. Weathers says that a frequent fine syringeing with warm soapy water will sometimes check the disease. If when your Lilies flower you do not want their petals dusted over with yellow pollen, you must remove the anthers, the part of the stamen that contains the pollen.

Orange Lily (Lilium Croceum).

This is the splendid orange Lily with purple spots so much grown in Irish cottage gardens. It is one of the easiest and hardiest of Lilies, and looks well against a background of shrubs or ferns. The bulbs should be planted from six to nine inches deep, and need not be disturbed for years. If you have to dig yours up in spring or autumn, you can increase your stock by carefully detaching the little offsets from the parent bulbs. In time they will make flowering plants. This Lily will grow in sunshine or shade, and in any healthy garden soil.

Martagon, or Turk’s Cap, Lilies.

Some Lilies make two kinds of roots—one kind from their base, and one kind from their stem. Others only make basal roots, and should, on that account, be planted in autumn. Their root action begins in October, and goes on through the winter, so that if they are lifted in spring they are seriously damaged, and may not flower. All the Martagon, or Turk’s Cap, Lilies, belong to this class. If you want them you must plant them in autumn. You can have them in crimson, white, or yellow, but the handsomest is Album, with stems from four to five feet high, carrying a large number of waxy white flowers. The petals in this species are turned back, and give the effect of a Turk’s cap or turban. They are easily grown in a mixture of loam and leaf-mould, and in a partly shaded position.

Lilium Speciosum.

There are several varieties of this Lily, and they are all most beautiful. They flower in the late summer and autumn, and should have a warm and sheltered situation. They should be planted in loam, peat, leaf-mould, and sharp sand. If you live in a cold district, you should give these Lilies and the Auratums a covering in winter. A mulching of manure is good for them, and will keep them warm.

Tiger Lily (Lilium Tigrinum).

The best variety of this Lily is Lilium Tigrinum Splendens. The flowers are orange-red, spotted or ‘tigered’ with blackish purple. A fine specimen sometimes reaches a height of seven feet, and bears twenty-five flowers. All the Tiger Lilies are easily grown in a well-drained soil in a partly shaded situation. They can be increased by offsets, or by the little blackish bulblets you will see on the stems amongst the leaves. These will drop and root themselves if not gathered, but they will not make flowering bulbs for some years.

Lilium Auratum.

This is the King of Lilies, the ‘Golden Lily of Japan,’ and a native of that country. If you live within reach of Kew Gardens, you should go there in summer on purpose to see these splendid Lilies flowering amongst the Rhododendrons, where they have a moist, peaty soil for their roots. Mr. Wallace, of Colchester, the great authority on Lilies, says that the Auratum likes a strong soil, not too heavy, a good friable loam. It should be planted about three times its own depth, and, if you can possibly get it, in some moist sea-sand. It is one of the stem-rooting Lilies, and will sometimes get support through its flowering season from these roots only. But if it is to make good bulb growth, too, so as to come up and flower another year, it must have basal roots, and be planted directly it arrives from Japan. It requires a warm and sheltered situation, and in spring likes a mulching of well-rotted manure. Do not put it where it can be shaken by violent winds or scorched by a full midday sun. The best variety is Auratum Platyphyllum. There is one thing you must remember about all Lilies, and that is that they sometimes lie dormant for a year. We have often found they did this after removal. We once planned a fine display of the Madonna Lily in a corner of a new border, but though we bought dozens of bulbs and put them in, none came up. We thought they must have resented the move and died; but when we grubbed down amongst them to see what had happened, we found every bulb as plump and healthy as we could wish. They were having a year’s sleep.

Day Lily (Hemerocallis).

This belongs to the Lily Order, but it is not a bulb. It is a herbaceous plant, with a rhizome and short, fleshy roots, rather like a bunch of brownish-white fingers. They succeed in any good garden soil, but they like one that has been well manured some weeks before planting. They should be left undisturbed three or four years, and may then be divided in autumn when the leaves have withered. When you replant, put them from twelve to eighteen inches apart. The flowers are yellow or tawny, and only last for a day, or at most two. But they succeed each other quickly for several weeks. The Greek name means ‘Beauty of a day.’

Lily of the Valley (Convallaria Majalis).

There is a popular idea that the Lily of the Valley will grow in any kind of deep shade, and so you see its poor, starved leaves struggling for life under evergreen shrubs, or the strong roots of trees that steal all its nourishment. The Lily of the Valley does like shade for the greater part of the day, but it is a plant that requires proper food. It will stand sun if you give it a deep, rich soil. The best situation for it is under a wall with a north or west aspect, or in any shady place that has good soil with some sand in it, and fresh air overhead. The bed should be made in October, and the little tuberous roots set two inches apart each way, with the point of the crown just under the soil. Work the soil well amongst and over the branching roots as you plant. In a cold climate protect the bed with bracken or dead leaves in winter, or, better still, with a covering of manure. After four years your Lilies of the Valley should have grown into a thick mat of leaves. Then in October you must dig them up, dress your bed with fresh manure, soil and sand, pull your plants apart, and set them in rows again. If you can make two beds, one in sun and one in shade, you will have a longer succession of bloom. When you gather the flowers, do not pick many leaves, and, at any rate, only one from each plant, as they nourish the crowns.

There is a pretty story of the way the Lily of the Valley came to run wild, as it does in German woods. Once upon a time, so long ago that no one in Germany had any Lilies of the Valley, there lived an Abbot who was a great gardener and a holy man. A pilgrim passing through his district was kindly received by him, and in gratitude gave him a withered-looking root that he said he had brought from a country where similar roots bore lovely scented flowers. The Abbot planted it and watched it, as he watched everything in his garden. In the spring the root sent up a few broad, shining leaves, but no flowers. He left it alone, and next year there were more leaves and two or three Lilies of the Valley, the first that had ever grown in Germany. By the third year the fame of the plant had travelled here and there, so that people who loved their gardens came to the Abbey on purpose to see it. Every year there was a bigger bed of the Lilies and a longer procession of visitors to see them, and the heart of the Abbot was filled with pride and vainglory, because he, and no other man, possessed the flowers. But he was a holy Abbot; he became afraid of the pride growing within him, and saw it to be evil. So one day he dug up every Lily of the Valley growing in his garden and carried them into the woods, and planted them here and there, that they might belong to all men, and not to him alone; and ever since the woods of Germany have been full of Lilies of the Valley.