Hello from Northern Minnesota! I can't believe I have never found this group before and I am so excited. I joined the NALS and have my paperwork ready to mail for the MN North Star group. I am a long time gardener and have always loved Lilies especially. Now that I am staying on one place more or less and I am slowing down, I have decided to put my energies where they will do the most good. I have some seriously neglected gardens where I am now and trying to identify plants that I planted long ago and have forgotten (or don't remember planting). This lily is one of them. She stands normally about 4+ feet, blooms in July (kind of late), and smells heavenly with a very strong perfume.



These are old pictures and I noticed last year that she is not doing well (generally declining). I suspect she needs dividing but wasn't able to manage it last fall. I know it isn't the proper time do divide lilies but would digging them up and splitting them just as they are poking through the soil be a very bad idea? I have a lot of lilies that have to be moved or divided because of the extremely over grown condition of my gardens. If any of you can help me I would much appreciate it. This lily has thrived in my zone 3a gardens for over a dozen years or more.

Hello from a neighbour north of you in Manitoba and welcome to ATP! This is a great gardening website. How exciting to join the lily societies.
Your lilies look like a variety of trumpet- perhaps Regal Album or maybe Ortega? Anyway, as far as dividing and moving them it is preferable to do it in the fall but you can do it in the spring. The risk of course is to breaking the tender growth, but if you try to take up as much of the soil clump as you can this will help lessen the damage. If the stems get broken the lilies won't bloom this year, but the bulbs should be fine for next year. Good luck with renovating your garden beds!

Thank you DebbieC. I suspect you are correct that it is a Regal Album. I have another question after reading through all the stickies in this forum. What is a NOID? I can't find it in any of my lily books.

It's the general term for something you have "no id" for or "no idea" what it is. Welcome to ATP - word of warning...watch out for the different forums...you'll find yourself drooling over photos of everything from Amaryllis to zebra Grass!!! I've already expanded my garden by half again, and I've only been looking for a few months!

to ATP and the Liliums Forum, freezengirl! We are happy as you are to having joined us!

NOID stands for 'no id(entification)'

Welcome to ATP freezengirl. We love lilies and our gardens! We'd love to hear about what you grow.Thanks for joining us!

Well it seems like the last few years I predominantly grow weeds! While facing some health challenges I lost control of my extensive perennial gardens. I am in the process of whittling down, revamping and focusing more on the things that I love to do and work with the best in gardening. Luckily for me my adult daughter is well on her way to being as big of a gardening junkie as her mother if not more so-transplanting and passing along plants is a big priority for me. My husband and I have spent most of our lives rehabbing or building on properties, gardening for pleasure has kept me going through many projects. My motto has always been "if you can't fix it, then fake it" and nurturing growing things for beauty's sake seems like a worthy effort.
My garden buddy



Front kitchen door lilies from The Lilly Garden

The Lily Garden happens to be one of my very favorite lily growers. You show very nice lilies in your pictures. Good to have your love of gardening pass along to the next generation. You're garden buddy is adorable too.

freezengirl

It seems many lilies can survive being transplanted at various times of the year. Certainly in an ideal world there is a perfect time for everything in a garden, but sometimes that ideal time is when the gardener has the time or energy to perform the tasks at hand.

All I can add is if your bulbs are deep down, perhaps it can be useful to dig a deep hole some distance from them as to get your spade/digging fork a bit deeper down than usual to assure you get the maximum amount of basal roots with you when you move them. If they would happen to develop buds this summer it could also be useful to disbud them as to let the bulbs rebuild.

Wishing you the best of luck with the move of your bulbs

Always glad to have another Minnesotan on the forum.

You found the right place!

I think so! I potted up a bunch of lily seeds I had into gallon size pots and have them outside on the deck letting mother nature do her thing. Quite a lot of information here just following the older posts. Last night while reading them I confirmed what I had suspected about some damaged lilies I had a couple of years ago. It was quite mystifying at the time but I was suspicious that I had cleaned up my beds to early in the spring and they had gotten frostbitten/sun scald on them. They were some OT's I had planted. I happened upon the thread because I had caught myself wanting to clean up the beds on a beautiful day this week and I stopped myself. March thaws and weird weather can reap havoc on anything my spring fevered mind can focus on. Tomorrow I am off to the hardware store to purchase some chicken wire and lathes. My old cat manages to sneak past the stuff I have been using to keep her out of the beds (I had no idea lilies were dangerous to cats) and now my old Basset has decided she loves the sunniest bed herself. I don't even want to think of how much damage her own fat self can cause laying across my lilies, the cat was a real crusher as it was.

Welcome to ATP's Lilyland.

I forgot to mention there's a thread for pet lover's as well.

Welcome! The amount I have learned about lilies on this forum in the past two years is astronomical. Enjoy it!