Which lilies need to be dug up for winter storage: timing

Lilies spread throughout the world from Asia, more precisely from Japan and other southeastern countries. There they were grown as vegetables - the bulbs were eaten. The warm climate made it possible to leave the underground part in the ground, so digging up lilies for the winter was not carried out. In Russia, where there are severe frosts in winter, not all varieties take root - only frost-resistant ones. The rest need to be moved to a warm room.

What varieties do you need?

Caucasian lily species are considered quite delicate, so in cold regions they freeze and disappear. The same applies to Japanese and Korean varieties, as well as lilies from Nepal.

In addition, experts advise digging up the following types of lilies:

Tubular - got their name because of the shape of the flower and are considered the most vulnerable. They freeze even when the soil is fully covered. This variety is considered the most numerous and has many shades.
Japanese ones are not resistant to frost.
LA hybrids - they need to be dug up in August.
Oriental hybrids.
American hybrids.

Tubular lilies must be dug up for the winter.

Do I need to dig up lilies for the winter?

Whether you need to dig up lily bulbs for the winter depends on what variety you plant. Before you buy seedlings, you need to inquire about the characteristics of this plant. There are a large number of species that tolerate frost well. For example, Siberian and tiger lilies grow in Eastern Siberia - these flowers feel good in the middle zone, where it is a little warmer than in Siberia. They can only be dug up to divide the underground part. This is necessary for good lush flowering - if the bulbs are not divided, the above-ground part stops blooming.

Caucasian varieties of lilies are much more delicate, so in cold regions they will freeze and disappear in winter. The same applies to Korean, Japanese species, as well as lilies native to Nepal (India), the stem of which reaches 3 meters, the sepals up to 20 cm, and the bulb the size of a human head.

Lilies have long been of interest to breeders who have created a huge number of hybrid varieties. Whether it is necessary to dig up lilies in the fall every year depends on their frost resistance - not all hybrid specimens are heat-loving, not all are afraid of cold weather.

What lilies need to be dug up for the winter:

Tubular, which got its name because of the shape of the flower, are considered the most vulnerable. They freeze in the soil even with good shelter. This is the most numerous variety with a large number of colors. To keep it in the garden, you will have to dig up lilies every year for the winter.
Japanese varieties are not frost resistant.
LA hybrids - they are dug up already in August.
Oriental hybrids.
American hybrid species.

It’s good if the bulbs were purchased from neighbors who know a lot about breeding or from a specialized local nursery, where they can tell you how to care for them in a given region. It’s worse if planting material is sent by mail without instructions on how to grow flowers. In this case, you will have to conduct an experiment: dig up most of the bulbs and store them indoors, and leave a few specimens in the garden for the winter. If they freeze, then these are hybrid varieties and they definitely need to be removed from the soil for the winter.

Which varieties are not needed?

There are many types of lilies that tolerate frost well. Thus, the Siberian and tiger varieties grow in Eastern Siberia. They feel good in the middle zone.

Such varieties are dug up only for division. This is required for lush flowering. If the bulbs are not divided, the above-ground part will not bloom.

In Siberia and the Urals, Asian varieties that are resistant to cold are usually grown. They tolerate winter well under snow cover.

However, to be on the safe side, they need to be covered with spruce branches or leaves before wintering. With the arrival of spring, the shelter needs to be removed.

Replanting lilies after flowering

There are varieties of lilies that are not dug up for storage for the winter, but are simply replanted. Not all gardeners know the optimal time to dig up lilies after flowering. Experts recommend doing this no earlier than 3 to 4 weeks after the end of flowering. If you replant early, the plant will either have difficulty taking root or may die completely.

In order to replant flowers, you need to separate the dead parts of the plant, then let the bulb dry in the shade and treat it with a disinfectant, for example, a pink solution of potassium permanganate or charcoal. The finished planting material is planted in dug up flower beds.

When to dig depending on the region?

Heat-loving southern lilies begin to be dug up 1-1.5 months after flowering has completed. This time must be maintained so that the bulb can restore the balance of nutrients in the tissues and survive the winter.

Each variety blooms at different times, so it is important to focus on the timing of cutting the last peduncle.

In Siberia, all ornamental crops finish flowering earlier than in the middle zone. Therefore, it is necessary to dig up lilies for the winter in the second half of September. In northern Siberia this is done in August or September.
In the Moscow region, the climate makes it possible to dig up lilies in October.
In the Leningrad region, this is done 7-10 days earlier - before the onset of the first frost.

In warm areas where frost begins in mid-to-late November, work can be done in mid-November.

Preparing lilies for winter: mulching and covering in autumn

The care measures described above are generally aimed at preparing the bulbous perennial for wintering. However, there are measures that help in the fall to purposefully and effectively prepare lilies for winter, so that they can safely survive frosts.

Important! Leaving bulbs in open ground without mulching and without shelter is only possible when growing perennials in southern regions with mild winters.

First of all, you should mulch the flower bed. Mulch will protect the bulbs from freezing and unfavorable conditions. The optimal time for mulching is when persistent cold weather sets in. Peat, leaf humus, rotted sawdust, compost or humus can be used as mulch. By the way, compost and humus, as mentioned above, will not only protect the bulbs from frost, but will also act as fertilizer. The optimal thickness of the mulch layer is 15-20 centimeters.

In some situations, in addition to mulch, in preparation for winter, it is also necessary to cover the lilies in the fall . Long-flowered, oriental, and American hybrids of lilies especially need shelter (if you do not dig them up for the winter). It is recommended to cover all the bulbs in open ground if the perennial flower is grown in regions with cold winters, for example, the Middle Zone (Moscow region), Siberia, the Urals, Leningrad region. You can put spruce spruce branches, leaf litter (but not from fruit trees!), and boards on a layer of mulch as a cover. It is optimal to place fallen leaves or spruce branches on top of the mulch, and boards on top so that they protect the covering material from the effects of strong winds. At the same time, it is very important in the spring to immediately remove the shelter when it gets warm.

Important! Lilies need to be covered when frost sets in, not before!

Digging rules

For lilies, the correctness of their digging is important. When carrying out this procedure, you cannot cut the stem while the bulb concentrates nutrients in the fall.

Foliage is required for the production of chlorophyll and the processing of potassium and phosphorus. In this case, it will be possible to normalize the balance of microelements, and the bulb will be able to grow in the spring.

You need to dig up lilies correctly.

It is important to avoid ripening seeds in boxes, as this takes away the strength of the underground part. Pruning of flower stalks should be done after flowering is complete so that the crop does not waste nutrients on seed development.

Reproduction is extremely rarely carried out by sowing, since in this case varietal characteristics are lost, which means the seeds have no value.

It is necessary to cut the flower stalks at an angle so that water does not penetrate into the stem. This provokes tissue rotting and infection of the bulb with fungus.

Lilies to be dug up must be at least 4-5 years old. At this point, babies appear on them, and therefore the flowers are ready for transplanting and propagation.

Preparing the plant

A signal to dig up lilies is considered to be a dried stem and flying leaves. To carry out the event, you need to take a pitchfork to avoid damaging the bulbs.

Disinfectants will also be required. These include potassium permanganate or a ready-made fungicide. You will also need scissors or pruning shears to trim the stems. Be sure to check the weather forecast. You need to dig up lilies in dry and warm weather.

Planting material should be stored in a special mixture. This also needs to be done in advance. This could be wet sawdust or peat.

If there is nowhere to store the bulbs at the dacha, they can be picked up and placed in the lower compartment of the refrigerator. A bag and damp burlap will help preserve the bulbs.

The first thing to do is remove all the dead stems and remove them from the area. In this case, you need to leave a cutting 5 cm in size. Do not moisten the soil before digging, since the bulbs will take longer to dry.

Lilies need to be trimmed before digging.

What to do with dug up lily bulbs

To prevent the roots of lilies from being damaged by moisture and frost, they need to be dug up in early autumn. Planting material should be dried for several days, and then sent for storage. Optimal conditions for keeping bulbs in winter:

temperature range from 0 to +5 °C;
relative humidity about 70%;
darkness;
good ventilation.

Read more When and how to plant lilies in the fall in the country

Different premises meet these requirements. You can store planting material in the following places:

on an insulated balcony or loggia;
in the barn;
in the basement or cellar;
in the refrigerator (on the shelf with vegetables and fruits).

You can put the bulbs in wide boxes or containers with a lid. When storing planting material in a cool room, proceed as follows:

A small (4–5 cm) layer of sawdust or small shavings is placed at the bottom of the container.
Then the bulbs are placed.
Cover the top with shavings (10 cm). Moss can be used as a filler.
Spray the top layer with settled water from a spray bottle.
Cover with a lid. It must be taken into account that containers with planting material cannot be tightly closed. There should be a small gap or several holes for air access.

If the lilies will be stored in the refrigerator, then the preparation is different:

Take thick plastic bags and make several small holes in them.
Fill with black peat or moss (can be mixed in equal quantities).
Place the bulbs and tie the bags.
Place the bundle in a tray and place it on a shelf with vegetables, where the temperature is about 4–6 degrees Celsius.

Important! Bulbs should not be kept together with fruits, as the latter emit ethylene, a gas that can damage lilies.

You can store planting material in peat pots.
An expensive method, but the most effective, is placing lilies in individual containers for the winter. You can use peat pots or plastic glasses with a little black peat poured into them. Containers with lilies are sent to the basement for storage. In the spring (early April), such pots can be placed on the windowsill and started to be watered, and in mid-May they can be moved into open ground. Thanks to this, plants take root very quickly in a new place.

Digging up bulbs

Lily bulbs must be dug up for the winter using a special technology. To carry out the procedure correctly, do the following:

Using a pitchfork, dig out the underground part and clear it of soil.
Inspect the bulb for damage - rot and mold. Damaged fragments must be removed.
The roots can be trimmed down to 5 cm if they are too long. Dry and rotten fragments must be cut off.
If the plant is 4-5 years old, the bulb needs to be divided into parts, as the children begin to compete for nutrients. This negatively affects flowering. Children of the same size should be stored separately from the mother bulb.
All obtained specimens must be washed with clean water and soaked in a solution of Karbofos or potassium permanganate. The duration of this procedure is 40 minutes.
The treated planting material should be placed in a shaded place to dry. Leaving it in the sun is prohibited. The bulbs are deprived of moisture and may die during storage.

Each bush must be pruned and dug out one at a time to avoid damage to the underground parts. If you cut all the bushes at once, there is a risk of not seeing the location of the bulb and hitting it with a shovel or pitchfork.

If planting material is affected by rot, it must be thrown away, since during storage the infection will affect the rest of the children. If you want to save a beautiful and rare variety, the rotten area needs to be cut out and cleaned to healthy tissue.

The damaged fragment should be sprinkled with crushed activated carbon; wood ash can also be used. It is advisable to store the damaged bulb at a temperature of no more than +5 degrees with moderate humidity. This will make it possible to heal the wound and normalize germination.

Storing dug up lilies has certain features.

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How to preserve bulbs at home?

After the bulbs have dried, they need to be rolled in ash and then placed in a cardboard box or plastic container.

You can also save planting material at home in a paper bag. This will protect it from light. To achieve a favorable microclimate in the package, you can add sawdust or moss.

Dried and packaged bulbs should be stored in a dark and cool place. A refrigerator or basement is suitable for this.

It is important to water lilies correctly, otherwise the bulbs will begin to sprout in winter.

Gladioli have faded, what to do next?

When to dig up gladiolus in the fall? They are dug out before the real cold arrives, so September - October are suitable months for these purposes. It all depends on the climate zone in which you live; if cold weather sets in very early, then it would be advisable to dig up gladioli bulbs in September. If the climate allows you to delay this issue a little and admire the flowers in the flowerbed, you can afford it.

Of course, you need to be constantly in this process and monitor the following things:

Weather forecast. Remember that sub-zero and even zero temperatures mean the death of gladiolus bulbs.
Flowering period. Thirty days must pass between the flowering period and the harvesting of the gladiolus for storage so that the flower has time to form a tuber capable of surviving and reproducing in the next season.
If a plant is infected with a fungal disease and brown spots appear on the leaves, it should be immediately dug up and stored, but separately from healthy plants.
Weather. The weather when digging up gladiolus in the fall should be sunny and dry.
Device. You don't need any special tools for this job, just take a regular shovel and use it carefully.

How to prepare gladioli for winter storage

What to do after you have dug up gladioli in the fall? Of course, they need to be prepared for storage:

To do this, the first thing you should do is clean the tubers from the soil and foliage.
Next, we trim the leaves using pruning shears, step back from the bulb by about three centimeters and cut off. This will allow the tuber to be better preserved in the spring, as the foliage sucks out the moisture that the tuber needs.
We cut off the roots, right down to the base.
Gladiolus tubers must be processed before storing. There are two processing options: immediately after assembly, and before planting. For these purposes, this is a solution of potassium permanganate (0.5 grams per 1 liter of water), wash the tubers each separately, and then wipe with a dry cloth.
We dry it before storing it. This procedure lasts approximately 7 days. To do this, we place the gladioli in one layer in boxes made of cardboard or wood. The temperature regime for such storage should range between +26+29C, the room should be dark. Then the boxes are transferred to a cooler room, where the temperature will not exceed +21C, and they are stored there for 30 days.

How to store gladioli at home in winter

Storing gladioli tubers in an apartment in winter

Before storing the tubers, they should be wrapped in newspaper, each separately; the newspaper can be replaced with natural fabric. It will not be possible to store gladioli in the living room; for this you need to have a glazed balcony or loggia, since the storage temperature should not be higher than +11C but not lower than +6C.

How to store gladioli:

Shoe box, you need to make holes in the box;
Boxes made of plastic or wood.

Please note that other plastic containers or plastic bags cannot be used for such storage.

Storing gladioli in the refrigerator

If you do not have a loggia or balcony, or any other suitable cool place, then you can store gladioli in the refrigerator. Gladioli are stored in the coldest compartment of the refrigerator, read the instructions from yours, and find this place, most often these are the lower compartments where fruits and vegetables are stored, although in new models of refrigerators, such places are not suitable for these purposes.

Folk remedies for fighting fungus on gladioli will help protect the plant until spring, just put chopped garlic cloves in the container where you store the tubers, they will cope with this problem.

Common mistakes

Some gardeners violate the rules for caring for lilies during preparation for winter. In order for plants to winter normally, you need to familiarize yourself with the most common mistakes:

Watering. People who grow flowers also water them in the fall. However, experienced gardeners do not recommend moistening the soil 2-3 weeks before digging. Otherwise, the bulbs will become saturated with moisture and begin to sprout in winter.
Incorrect application of fertilizers. Sometimes gardeners stop feeding lilies when watering occurs. As a result, the bulbs do not have time to become saturated with useful substances and die even after digging. To avoid this, minerals should be added to the soil in the fall in the form of compounds based on potassium and superphosphate. When fertilizing, you need to spend 10-12 liters of fertilizing per 1 square meter.
Premature pruning. Often people who do not have experience in growing lilies cut the flowers at the wrong time. This entails their death. You can trim the bushes only after flowering has finished.
Late digging. This is the most serious mistake that provokes the death of flowers. If you dig up lilies too late, their bulbs will simply freeze.

Rules for caring for lilies outdoors in autumn

So what to do with lilies in the fall? There are a number of autumn activities that are very important for the successful cultivation of perennial bulbous crops. These include pruning, fertilizing, and preventive treatment against diseases.

Watering

From the second half of August, watering stops completely! Excess moisture can cause fungal diseases, soaking and rotting of the bulbs. An exception is watering when applying liquid fertilizers and after applying dry granules.

Pruning lilies in autumn

Pruning lilies in the fall is the most important procedure for caring for a bulbous crop, which helps the plant prepare for winter, successfully survive frosts, and begin growth in the spring with renewed vigor.

It is impossible to prune lilies in the summer immediately after flowering ; this can greatly harm the plants or even cause their death. The fact is that after flowering, the plant actively continues its life activity: photosynthesis processes take place in the foliage, the roots continue to grow, the bulb is saturated with nutrients, gains strength for wintering, and ripens. And if you cut off the above-ground part immediately after flowering, the bulb will not be able to ripen and prepare for winter.

After flowering in summer, you can cut off only the flower stalks so that the plant does not waste resources on forming seeds. By removing the peduncle, the bulbs will ripen better.

The timing of pruning lilies in the fall is determined by the appearance of the plant: the leaves and stems should wither and dry out . These signs indicate that the bulbs have matured and the above-ground part can be cut off. As a rule, pruning time occurs in September or early October (in different regions of Russia, due to different climatic conditions, the timing of the care procedure may differ).

The scheme for autumn pruning of lilies is extremely simple: you need to prepare a disinfected pruning shears, and then completely cut off all the stems with leaves, leaving stumps about 15 centimeters high from the soil surface .

Important! If you do not prune lilies in the open ground, then pests and pathogens may remain in the foliage and shoots, and in the spring they can infect your flowers and other plants in the garden.
For the same reason, after autumn pruning, you need to immediately burn all plant debris.

Autumn feeding of lilies

Feeding lilies in the fall is the key to good health of the perennial plant, successful wintering of the bulbs, resistance to diseases and pests, lush and beautiful flowering in the coming season. The most important elements that this crop requires during this period are phosphorus and potassium (they increase the winter hardiness of the bulbs, make flowering more luxuriant and longer).

When is the best time to fertilize? It is most effective to feed lilies immediately after flowering . However, if you did not apply fertilizers during this period, you need to feed the flowers in the fall, but before the earth cools and cold weather sets in (approximate dates for autumn feeding: late September or early October). You can also combine and make 2 feedings ! At the same time, it is better to apply fertilizers in liquid form after flowering, but in dry form in the fall.

The following mineral fertilizers can be used as phosphorus-potassium fertilizer: superphosphate (40 grams per square meter of flower bed) and potassium sulfate (20 grams per square meter). Or you can use ready-made complex potassium-phosphorus fertilizer for autumn feeding of various crops (according to the instructions for the preparation).

Note! If you use dry granules, you need to lightly work them into the soil and then water them (in dry weather).
And to make a solution, you need to completely dissolve the granules in the indicated dosages in 10 liters of water (for better dissolution, you can first dissolve the fertilizer in a liter of warm water, and then mix it with plain water). And then water the flower beds with the solution (10 liters per sq.m.).

As organic phosphorus-potassium fertilizers, you can use wood ash (a source of potassium) and bone meal (a source of phosphorus), 100 grams of each substance per 1 square meter of flower bed. However, wood ash contributes to the alkalization of the soil, so it cannot be used when growing Asian, Oriental, American lilies, and LA hybrids (it is these species that do not tolerate alkaline soil).

Important! Before applying liquid fertilizers, you must first water the flower garden with plain water. You also need to water the flower garden after planting the dry granules.

As an organic fertilizer, you can mulch the flowerbed in late autumn with humus or compost . However, you should not abandon mineral fertilizers in favor of such organic matter, because the latter serves as an additional feeding, but not the main one, because they do not contain the necessary potassium and phosphorus.

Preventive treatment against diseases

Any disease of garden crops is easier to prevent than to treat. Therefore, in order to protect a perennial flower from fungal diseases in the next season, it is very important to carry out preventive treatments of lilies in the fall.

Disease pathogens can be eliminated using preventive spraying with a fungicide solution, for example, Bordeaux mixture, Hom. In this case, you need to spray not only the plants themselves, but also the soil around them.