Plant Doctor Archive

Transplanting lilies

WE are moving house in June and I would like to take my lilies with me. Will they transplant?

I CHECKED with lily expert Margaret Liddell who says, yes, you can lift and shift your lilies.

Treat them as perennials and never let the roots dry out. You can either pot them up using a potting mix that does not contain a wetting agent, or place the bulbs into trays and cover with wet sphagnum moss or a similar medium that will keep them moist until they can be replanted.

When digging, it's best to take the smaller bulbs that are 5cm or less, as they'll establish and continue to grow when transplanted. The big "daddy" bulb at the bottom will flower for two years and die.

If, on the other hand, you just have a large bulb, dig this but take some scales off and plant these close or beside the large bulb and when your large bulb collapses the scales would have become bulbs in their own right and you won't have lost the original lily you purchased.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH.