Easter Lily Care & Tips For Transplanting Outdoors

Easter lilies (Lilium longiflorum) are beautiful with their white trumpet flowers and are traditionally given as gifts or purchased for decoration during the Easter season. This year don’t toss the plant after the blooms are gone–try transplanting the lily in your garden and you could be rewarded with more blooms in the Fall (if you’re lucky) or next Spring (up to Zone 6). Here’s how:

Lilium longiflorum (Image Source: wikimedia.org)

• Choose a sunny or bright location so the plant will receive plenty of light during the day. Keep away from heat sources (like a heat register) since the plant prefers being cool at night.
• Water the plant well each day.
• Once the plant blooms and the leaves begin to yellow, keep watering until ready to transplant outdoors (allow the leaves to die naturally before pruning them from the plant).

Transplanting Outdoors:

• When all danger of frost has passed in the Spring and the soil can be worked, plant the bulb 6 to 8 inches deep in the soil. Choose a location where the plant will receive lots of sun and make sure the soil is well-draining. Once planted, top the soil with about an inch or two of mulch to help keep the roots cool during the hot summer.
• The lily may bloom in the Fall of the same year it is planted but usually it will not bloom until late Spring of the following year (typically May to June).

Tips

• Instead of planting it in the garden or flower bed, you can repot the plant in a patio container and grow it outdoors on your deck or balcony.
• If the lily starts growing up out of the soil too early in the Spring (when it will likely get killed off by frost), try covering the new growth with a few inches of potting soil.
• Did You Know: The white trumpet flowers of the Easter Lily symbolize purity, hope and life.
• Lilies are very poisonous to cats so make sure to keep them out of reach of your favorite feline.
• If you live in a colder climate than Zone 6, try mulching heavily in the Fall–it might just do the trick and the lily may make an appearance next Spring.

Don't Miss These Tips:

• Spider Plant Care & Growing Tips
• Moving Houseplants Outdoors: Tips
• Forcing Bulbs Indoors For Winter Blooms: How-To & Tips