You can’t think of spring without thinking of beautiful Easter lilies. Spring is the perfect time to add Easter lilies to your indoor plant collection. Read on to learn all you’ll need to know about how to care for these elegant spring flowers.
How to Choose an Easter Lily
While shopping for your perfect Easter lily, look for one that looks healthy but not yet in full bloom. Try to pick an Easter lily with tight buds and lush green leaves. Look for any signs of pest infestation or disease: yellowing, wilting leaves, webbing, or holes in the leaves.
Check to see what kind of pot the Easter lily has been kept in. If the lily is more than twice the height of the pot it’s in, that is a sign that the pot is too small, and the plant may be in distress. Check the pot to make sure it has good drainage; if not, your plant may have root rot.
Finally, keep in mind that Easter lilies are highly toxic to cats, so make sure you take care not to put your cats at risk.
How to Care for Easter Lilies
When you bring your new Easter lily home, remove any decorative features or foil that your plant is wrapped in or sitting on. While it might be pretty, it may be preventing your Easter lily from draining correctly. Make sure the container the plant is in has good drainage. Re-pot your Easter lily if necessary. Keep your lily in cooler temperatures and higher humidity. If possible, aim for between 60-65 degrees F.
As your flowers bloom, remove the yellow “anthers” that are inside each of the plant’s flowers. Easter lily anthers are full of pollen, and removing them will help prevent staining you and your belongings. It also helps maintain the plant, allowing the blooms to last longer.
Do Easter Lilies Need Direct Sunlight?
Easter lily care is relatively simple. They do well in bright, indirect sunlight and only need to be watered when their soil is dry to the touch. As mentioned, these lilies prefer cooler temperatures, so try to keep them away from heaters and vents. Since they like relatively high humidity, we suggest creating a rock and water tray or setting up a humidifier nearby on a cool setting.
What to do After Your Easter Lily Blooms
After your Easter lily blooms, you can gently remove the flowers to encourage new growth from your plant.
Transferring your Easter Lily to the Outdoors
Once your Easter lily has finished blooming, you can bring it outside to enjoy. Make sure you move it outdoors only after the risk of frost damage has passed, and expose it to the outdoors gradually over several days to acclimate the plant to the outdoor environment.
If you plan to transfer the Easter lily into an outdoor pot, gently remove it out of from its indoor container and plant the bulb into its new spot around the same depth as it was planted in its indoor pot. Add a bit of mulch around the roots, but leave the stem exposed, so it doesn’t rot. Water it well this time and through its beginning period of rapid growth. Once it has settled into its new environment, you can let it dry out between waterings.
Before repotting, prune off any dead or dying blooms. Choose an area in your yard that gets bright, indirect light to place the container.
If you choose to bring your lily outside, keep in mind that it is not cold hardy for our zone and will not survive outside through our winter. We recommend keeping it in a pot so it can be easily brought inside when temperatures drop. Otherwise, you can plant your Easter lily in your garden beds as an annual flower.
Why We Love Easter Lilies
What’s not to love about Easter lilies? You can grow these beauties indoors or outdoors, and their blooms are some of the most cherished of the season. Easter lilies are relatively easy to care for and make perfect Easter and Mother’s Day gifts. They are important symbols of grace, purity, and peace. They make perfect centerpieces during the spring months, and with proper care, will reward you with gorgeous blooms into the summer.
If you’re looking for Easter lilies on sale now in Bismarck, come visit us! We’ll help you get stocked up and answer all your plant and garden questions.