I am so thrilled that we got lily this year. We got our lily bulbs from my mother-in-law in the summer of 2014. She lived in Brooklyn at the time and she always maintained the best container garden in the neighborhood (you can see some of the pictures here). At the end of summer, she asked us to take the lily back to NC since they would not survive the winter in NY outside. We happily complied – lily is one of my favorite flowers. But I had no experience growing them and they look like such delicate flowers.

We ended up putting the lilies into the ground near our front door before winter came. It is at the north side of the house and only gets a few hours of sun each day. But we have such a deer problem so anything not directly outside of door had to be fenced in or deer-resistant. We also want to see the flowers when they bloom. The soil on the north side was very poor to begin with – it is clay mixed with big rocks and it was a low point of the yard so water sat there and it was literally a muddy pool in summer. But after we dug a drain system underground and and leveled the front yard with about a foot deep of good soil, we were be able to put some hardy plants here. I am pleasant to find out that lily is actually pretty hardy – just like other bulbs it not only survived last winter pretty well, but also multiplies just like other bulbs.

Our lily started putting flower bulbs at the beginning of June and they open very very slowly – one per week at the beginning. We kept the fresh flowers in our bedroom so we can smell them during our dreams.  It is such a sweet smell that I can never get enough of – can someone please make candle with lily smell?

But this weekend: look what happened! six lilies opened in just two days and we now have lilies in every room. 🙂