Experienced gardeners and gardeners are well aware that in order for a summer cottage to look beautiful in the summer, you need to start preparing it in the fall.
We will tell you how to arrange a flower bed with lilies. The photos presented in the article will clearly demonstrate how it will look during the flowering period.
Why lilies? Because these flowers look great both solo and in combination with other plants. Lilies are distinguished by an abundance of colors, smell delicious, unpretentious and, importantly, relate to perennials.
Lilies in the garden
The palette of lilies is incredibly diverse. Which makes it possible for a large number of options for using these colors in landscape design. Depending on the variety, and they are both tall (up to 2 m), and miniature (0.5 m), they can be placed in the foreground as a border or behind lower flowers, like solitaires.
Large lilies planted along the fence look good as a limiter to the site.
Tall lilies are beautiful next to conifers and shrubs with small leaves - barberry, mahonia, euonymus, boxwood. This kind of flowerbed with lilies is in the photo below.
The tone, shape and texture of lily leaves differ depending on the variety, and these nuances can be applied to create contrast with other plants. The flower beds with lilies presented in our article give a complete idea of how it will look in the flowering season.
A skillful combination of different types of lilies allows you to admire the flowering of royal flowers until the fall, especially if you combine them in mixborders or discounts, next to annuals.
Beautiful flowering conditions
Lilies tolerate partial shade and feel best on neutral soils. Choosing neighbors for them, one should give preference to hygrophilous plants, since lilies love moist soil, but without stagnation of water.
At the end of flowering, the lily leaves dry up and look unaesthetically pleasing. The wilted stems and leaves are masked well by the lower and lush bushes of marigolds, wormwood, lyatris, geyhera or annual ground cover phlox. They will serve not only as a good background for lilies that have entered the flowering season, but they will also mulch the earth around them from drying out.
For the same purpose, lilies are surrounded by ferns, the host. To build such a flower bed with lilies with your own hands is not at all difficult.
In spring, it is recommended to moisten the ground under lilies with a solution of calcium nitrate and introduce complex fertilizer. At the end of flowering, in order to provide the bulbs with strength for the next year, the earth under the lilies needs to be watered once again with liquid phosphorus-potassium fertilizer.
The main disease of lilies is botris, or gray rot. A pathogenic fungus affects the bulbs if they are too closely planted, and the earth around them is excessively wet and compacted. For the prevention of botris, the soil at the base of the peduncles must be regularly loosened with forks, and in the autumn thin out overgrown bushes. Only in this case, a flower bed with lilies will decorate your summer cottage for many years.
Popular combinations
Against the background of a high wall, climbing roses are often planted, and lily bulbs are placed in front of them. It is beautiful, but suitable only for large spaces, for example, near the porch of a house or around a gazebo. Children often play in these places and can trample small plants, and tall lilies are allowed to be planted near the wall, under the branches of roses. In such a neighborhood, they will feel quite good. At the roots, plant several hosta bushes. The plant remarkably mulches the earth and grows so that it is quite difficult not to notice and trample it, as well as the stems of lilies stretched out from under its wide leaves. A beautiful flowerbed with lilies surrounded by a host is also presented in our material.
What can not be planted
Lilies should not be planted next to irises. Despite the fact that their flowering time is different, and in appearance these plants seem to be compatible, such a neighborhood will adversely affect both. The fact is that faded irises should never be watered. Their main root, located on the surface of the earth, will quickly decay, and lilies during flowering require regular moistening of the root soil.
The second unfortunate neighbor of the lily is a tulip. These flowers have common diseases. In addition, tulip bulbs invariably attract the attention of mice. Having spoiled tulips, they at the same time gnaw also bulbs of lilies. And they, especially varietal ones, are very expensive and are rarely available for sale. If you want a flower bed with lilies to please with flowers all summer, starting in spring, plant daffodils or a forest near it.
Experienced gardeners who do not want to part with tulips dig in lily bulbs along with plastic or metal cans. They block their walls with access to them both mice and other pests.
The jar is cut from above and below and is hammered into the ground around the bulb with a hammer. This will subsequently complicate watering, but preserve valuable specimens from garden vandals.
Lilies under the tree
Lily is one of those plants that can be planted under tall trees right along the perimeter of the trunk, departing from it by 50 cm. It is not only beautiful, but also very practical - when watering lilies, you will water the tree. It will also take away excess water, which can harm the bulbs.
When choosing a combination, do not forget to clarify whether the flowering queen of the garden coincides with the ripening of the fruits on the tree under which she is planted. Falling apples or pears will easily break the flower stalks, and all your hopes for a luxurious flower bed with lilies, fragrant with a delicate aroma, will go to dust.
Path Framing
Lilies do not like crowding, but require masking the stems. After all, after the flowering period ends, and they lose their decorative effect. Both of these tasks will be successfully completed by medium-sized garden flowers, for example, coleus, primrose, lobelia, if you plant them in the foreground flower beds with lilies.
Primrose begin to bloom in the spring, when the lilies only start to grow. These flowering perennials will leave a miniature rosette of leaves after flowering, which will not at all spoil the appearance of a flower bed with lilies in the country house or in the front garden, in front of the windows of the city house.
Lobelia begin to bloom in June and retain their decorativeness until the end of September. Their spherical bushes with bright scarlet or blue flowers are not only very decorative in themselves, but will be wonderful neighbors for lilies. Red lobelia is best combined with lilies of the same shade or with white, and blue - with almost any. How cute they look in the flowerbed with lilies in the country! The photos presented in the review prove this.
Between the bushes of tall lilies of orange shades it is good to scatter seeds of eschscholia. Its small orange flowers will not only decorate lilies and emphasize the nobility of large-flowered tiger species, but will also decorate flower beds with lilies in the country (photos clearly demonstrate this) until winter, because flowering eschscholtia often continues until the end of November.
You can preserve the attractive appearance of the path for a long time by planting bushes of low ferns among the lilies. It will turn out such blooming ferns from an old legend.
Flowerbed without weeding
The need for regular weeding of weeds near lilies often makes gardeners refuse to plant lilies in their plots. Coarse weeds quickly clog the tender shoots of lilies, and they soon stop growing completely.
We propose to make flower beds of lilies with your own hands (the photo is presented in the article), among the plantings of rhododendrons and astilbe.
A large flowerbed in the middle of the garden, on which these large plants flaunt, harmoniously accepts the neighborhood with lilies. Astilba takes root quite deeply, so in a short time it quickly and permanently replaces all the weeds that used to grow in this place. In such conditions, the lily bulbs will feel absolutely excellent. Lush rhododendrons will distract attention from the unsightly stems of lilies, and the flowers of the lilies themselves against the background of the wax leaves of rhododendrons will look especially noble.
If the view of the bare earth seems dull and uninteresting, then it can be covered with a layer of well-dried and shredded tree bark.
Combination with small-flowered
Large glasses of lilies look incredibly attractive and aristocratic against plants with small flowers. Plant yarrow next to them. It comes in different varieties with white or pink inflorescences. Deliciously combined with lilies yarrow ptarmika. Don't like yarrow? Replace it with Iberis perennial. The effect will be the same.
The lily bush looks very decorative (the photo of flowers on the flowerbed is in the article), surrounded by small balls of tall anaphalis of a pearl or fluffy bush of small-flowered gypsophila. Twigs of these plants, they are also called "pearls", florists are often added to bouquets with lilies or roses.
The fragrant alissum or matthiola will hide the unsightly lower branches of the lily and, mixed with its aroma, will create a divine cocktail of smells. Arrange this flowerbed near the window of the house or porch and in the evenings you will enjoy the fragrance of paradise.
Combination with decorative foliage
This option will appeal to those who love conciseness or have in the garden a sufficient number of bright mixborders and discounts. Next to them, a flower bed with lilies on the background of decorative deciduous plants will stand out very much, so we recommend using this option for zoning the recreation area near the gazebo or barbecue area. Or, alternatively, plant selected plants along the path leading from the door of the house to the gate. On the back line let there be tall lilies, and in the foreground - a strip of bluish cineraria seaside, with velvet carved leaves. A heinera with colorful leaves and small flowers can become an alternative to cineraria, it will ideally emphasize the noble bells of lilies during flowering and hide the unsympathetic stems of already faded garden queens.
Flowerbed of continuous flowering
Which gardener does not dream of a flower bed with perennials that blooms from spring to late autumn? You can make such a flower bed, but you still have to take care of it. We’ll show you how to minimize the care of your flowerbed with lilies.
A large number of plants planted nearby quickly depletes the soil, so once in the winter and once before flowering, it will need to be fertilized with the appropriate minerals. Well, in the summer she will need watering and only occasionally - loosening.
The center of the composition of our flowerbed of continuous flowering are lilies. The next circle is planted with bulbs of daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths. Between them - primrose. Plant pearls in the spaces between them, and ground cover asters in the next circle. Thus, you will receive a flowerbed that will delight you with flowers from early spring to late autumn.
Lilies and hosts
This is a very successful combination especially loved by landscape designers. Hosts cover unsightly stems of lilies with their large leaves. They grow quite slowly and do not cause gardening problems with weeding, and large leaves of one bush can cover a whole square meter of area around lilies. So that in spring the land on the flowerbed is not empty, because the hosts wake up quite late, plant on it the bulbs of snowdrops, muscari or crocuses. They do not bloom for long, so hosta leaves that have grown in the summer will not interfere with them. Such a flowerbed with a minimum of effort made at the very beginning will look well-groomed and decorative for many years. What is called, planted and forgot.
Lilies and conifers
Lilies are successfully combined with stunted coniferous shrubs. Against the background of juniper, arborvitae, dwarf pines and cypresses, lilies look very impressive. Since the flowering period is quite short, it is advisable to plant different varieties with large flowers and different flowering periods at a distance of 1.5 m from each other, and to plant small-flowered climbing roses between them.
The conifers spreading on the ground will keep the earth moist longer, but will not impede the movement of air.
Some experts object to such a combination, because conifers, roses and lilies require soil of different composition, but here the solution is quite simple: individual fertilizer complexes must be laid in the planting pit of each plant. Almost a meter distance between them will create suitable conditions for each individually. In the meantime, the conifers have not grown, fill the voids with spring, summer and autumn one- or perennials.
Such a flower bed will take up a lot of space, so arrange it in advance so that subsequently it does not interfere with movement in the garden and is clearly visible from different angles.