LILIES IN SOUTHERN SCOTLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19015, 10 November 1923, Page 3

LILIES IN SOUTHERN SCOTLAND

OF INTEREST TO LOCAL GROWERS. Mr David R. Williamson writes enthusiastically in the Gardeners’ Chronicle of Lilium regale, a native of Western China He considers it the most beautiful lily he has seen for many years, and says:—‘ T have had this incomparable specie? adorning my finest flower-border for the first time this season, and its artistic aspect, its Wonderful combination of colours, brown, white, and yellow, with green lines radiating (like Lilium speciosum Kraetzeri) from the centre, combined with, fragrance, somewhat resembling that of Magnolia Watsonii, have made it an object of great admiration. This beautiful lily .deserves to be widely cultivated, and under very t favourable conditions it may’ bc grown from seed to full .flowering size . within two years. It has been cultivated with great .success by Mr M’Douall. in Logan Gardens, where also L. Grayi, L. philippinenso vav. formosanum (a very distinctive and handsome lily), L. nepalense, usually somewhat arduous of culture under open-air conditions, L. gigantoum, L pardalinum var. Barbankii. L. Hnmboldii, a species of impressive aspect, and the. largo flowered L. auratum platyphyllum, are grandly grown. In the gardens of Monrcith, Lochinch, and Logan, in Wigtownshire, and in those of Southwiok and Cavens in Kirkcudbrightshire, the great lily of the • Himalayas has for several seasons been , quite commanding in its size and height, and in the number of its g'orious flowers, - whose fragrance, like that of Lilium spcciosmn. is highly fascinating, because- it -is refined. I often wonder that the latter highly artistic lily, the culture of which is by no menus exacting, is not jmich more extensively grown . in our larger British gardens-; especially as it is The latest, and assuredly one" of the loveliest of them all. For my own part. I attach so much importance-to its, graceful aspect and delicate odour, when experienced by its cultivator on a calm evening in September. that I- regard it as a veritable floral inspiration. The stately Madonna Lilv (Lilium candidum). which I greatly fear is seldom adequately appreciated for Its beauty and fragrance, and such, splendidly . effective varieties of Lilium longiflorum as Wilsonit and giganteum, are also eminently entitled, by reason of their artistic ■ capabilities, to a much more extensive cultivation. ■