Most of us refer to the flowers in this picture as an Orange Lily, or a Tiger Lily. But, some people call this Day Lily a "Ditch Lily". It's because this prolific wildflower is commonly found in ditches around a wide area of America.
There is much confusion about Tiger Lilies. An oriental variety is very similar. The major difference is that the oriental Tiger Lily propagates through a bulbs that forms at leaf axils. The common wildflower Tiger Lily is a profuse propagator by means of tuberous roots. Both varieties have edible roots and have been used for medicinal purposes. We will focus the remainder of this article on the wildflower variety.
Do you want to know about tiger lily flowers? Yes! This name sounds strange. Actually tiger lily is an orange flower having dark spots on its petals. These flowers have sweet fragrance and have various other names like ditch lily, Wood Lily, Leopard Lily and Oregon Lily etc. Here in this post, I have collected some facts about tiger lily flowers. If you are interested in knowing about these flowers, then this post will be of great interest for you.
Growing Requirements
These flowers are not difficult to grow at all. All you need to do is to keep the soil wet since tiger lily flowers like dampness. This flower produces bulbs instead of seeds which can be planted in the fall for having mid-summer blooms.
These flowers don’t require to be fertilized. They only need fertilizers if you are planting them in somewhat poor soil. Unlike other bulb flowers, tiger lilies require winter cold to grow healthily. While planting bulbs of tiger lilies, you must make sure that the distance between them should be from 9 to 12 inches. Moreover bulbs should be planted 6 inches deep in a sunny location.
Types of Tiger Lilies
There are two types of tiger lilies named:
- Common wildflower
- Oriental
Wildflower type grows from tuberous roots while oriental tiger lilies are planted by bulbs and they are dug up later and then they are divided.
Other Characteristics
- Bloom size of tiger lilies is from 4 to 6 inches long
- These flowers are 3 inch wide
- Flowers have bright orange or red color having black spots on the petals with six stamens
- Since it stands tall, it makes a beautiful backdrop to garden area
- This plant creates leaves having a width of 2 inches
Interesting Fact
Bulbs of these flowers are dug up and are boiled and then eaten by Americans. This practice is also common in other oriental countries. They taste like potatoes and are commonly used in Chinese dish moo shu pork. Brown pear dessert dish is also prepared from tiger lilies by placing the bulbs inside a pear along with sugar. Then they are steamed and eaten.
These were some basic and interesting facts about tiger lilies. I hope that this post will urge you to grow these flowers in your garden.
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