I have 3 star gazer Lilly's in a pot. 2 of them are healthy and have green leaves the third plant has dropped its leaves and gone black at the top.
All 3 plants flowered over Christmas and for some reason 2 of the plants are fine but the third looks sick.
Can you recommend anything to stop the third Lilly from Dying.

dormancy after blooming is normal.
you're not going to prevent their turning brown and dying back.

It's not normal to go dormant that quickly after bloom. All true lilies (including Stargazer) need to replenish food stores in the bulb after blooming for growth next season.

There is not much you can do about the struggling one. It may have bulb rot, or it may just have struggled to produce a bloom and used up all its energy to flower. If when they were flowering, they all seemed to flower with about the same vigor, then I would guess the bulb has rotted and that particular bulb will be dead. (However the others are unaffected.) If the affected plant had noticeable smaller or deformed flowers compare to the others, then I would suspect either the bulb has rotted and dead or the bulb is depleted, but still alive. if it is still alive, next season it will be much smaller and won't be blooming.

BTW, if you are in the subtropics, will it get cold enough for the seasonal change that Stargazers require? I don't think so.

Thank you for your response.

Below is a photo from the 28th Dec 2023.
I did notice the flowers weren't as pink as the other two plants. You can see this in the attached photo.

In the sub-tropical area I live, one month - July the temperature is a maximum of 20°C with a minimum of 9°C in the mornings and evenings.

I don't understand how 2 of the plants are doing well and the other isn't. The bulb is so close to the other two.
If you think there is nothing I can do for the bulb I'll leave it, as is, and hope for the best.

I just gave the stem a pull and the roots are still hanging on tightly. I don't think the bulb has rotted.

I don't know if 9°C is cold enough, but I bet @Australis will know.

It's not uncommon for for one plant (of any species) to be affected by something while the others right next to it are not. Lots of things can happen to individual plants that make them more (or less) vulnerable. That particular lily bulb may have been damaged when planted in the pot, while the others were not, for instance. Theoretically, you might get sick with a cold but your husband does not, yet you both are the same species. It's natural that we as humans wouldn't know all the intricacies in a plant's life.

Yes, it does sound like the bulb is stll intact.

You missed uploading the pic. There is another possibility that that particular plant has a virus. Viruses work a little differently in lilies than people. Once they get it, it cannot be cured. Symptoms of a virus in lilies often show up in the flowers, so that second pic you mentioned may tell us definitively. If we find the "dormant" lily is virused, it must be removed.

Thank you again
The Lilly I'm talking about is the lightest pink colour. The other two flowers were much brighter pinks.
I think I'm best leaving it as is and see what happens next season.

9 degrees celsius =
48.2 degrees fahrenheit

I am dubious that 9C is cold enough. I have no problems with Asiatics going "dormant" through winter here in Melbourne (where my average minimum is 3-5C), but some Aurelians don't shut down until the coldest weather of the year hits in June/July. I have, on occasion, had to cut back Aurelians that were still green in June. As an experiment I once left a stem that did not die back in winter; the next season's stem came up next to it.

In the case of your lilies (which don't look like the cultivar 'Stargazer', by the way, but another Oriental hybrid), you can but try cutting them back in June if they haven't gone dormant. Personally I find Orientals struggle with the heat here and so I suspect they will be short-lived up on the Gold Coast.

P.S. I'm moving this thread to the Lilium forum.

Hi Josh,

Another Australian 🇦🇺 whoo who.

Thanks for your response.
I bought the Lilly's from Bunnings. They were already growing and ready to flower. The label is below. They are Lilly Entertainers, and very pretty. I'm not sure what a cultivator Stargazer is. I'll search when I finish replying to you.

We just thought we were talking about Stargazer lilies because that was the name you put on the thread. It really doesn't matter much, as they are both oriental lilies and take the same growing conditions.

That your lily bulbs were already growing in the bag says a lot to us. Of course the ideal time to transplant a lily blub is long before it wants to grow a shoot. (Best to grow roots first that will help nourish a growing shoot.) Since you weren't able to do this, it puts a lot of stress on the lilies. But as you see, most plant life is quite resilient, and always wants to overcome the hurdles we humans force on them. Knowing that your lilies suffered from a very late planting, your lilies have grown very well, IMO! The color that is lacking in the flowers is probably due that stress. Most likely, if you are able to get them to flower again next season, the flowers will be darker like your original sales photo.

None look diseased or virused, and now that I know more about them, it points to that one plant's bulb going dormant early - not a normal thing in general, but nothing to worry about in this case.

So the big question is, will they grow for you in your climate? Never hurts to try if you like putting in the extra effort. but it would be an experiment that may or may not turn out.

@Leftwood, they wouldn't have been in a bag. Bunnings often stocks potted Liliums during summer that are in bud for customers to buy.

Drewitts is located in the Dandenongs in Victoria (which is an ideal place for growing Liliums and many other bulbs), so I'm a little surprised their stock was sent so far north.

Oh! Well then, forget what I said!

They weren't in a bag when I bought the Lilly's were in a pot and I transplanted them into a fancy pot that I purchased because I was impressed that I even found them in Bunnings.
Having said that, if one plant has just gone dormant after flowering there is nothing much I can do. It was only flowering a few weeks ago.
Do you think they may not flower next year because our winter isn't cold enough.
This is how I bought them in the photo.

When you transferred them to the new pot, did you completely unearth the bulbs and roots? Or did you just slide the contents of the Bunnings pot into the larger one? If you disturbed the potting mix around the bulbs during the transplant, that may explain why one has died back already. Most Liliums (Martagons being the exception) prefer to be moved in autumn.

Even though it might not get cold enough to force dormancy where you are, if the bulb produces a new stem in spring there's a very good chance it will bloom. The Aurelian hybrid I had that stayed green through winter and produced a new stem still bloomed on the new stem. I think you will just have to wait and see what they do as winter approaches.

Thank you for all your advice.

I had been trying to get a star gazer Lilly for quite some time and couldn't believe my luck when I came across this entertainer Lilly ( that I thought was a star gazer anyway ) and couldn't believe it went black two weeks after flowering. I appreciate all your comments. Thank you so much. Best wishes from a great gardening year in 2024.