LADY BUG... EASTER LILIES MAY BE PLANTED OUTDOORS

This Easter morning many churches will be decorated with pots of Easter lilies, the beautiful flower that has become the symbol of the holy season. For a week or so prior to Easter, the garden centers, nurseries and retail stores have them available to the public. This plant bears large, fragrant flowers which are waxy white on a tall stalk with long pointed leaves.

The date of Easter Sunday varies from year to year as it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21, so the earliest possible date of Easter is March 22 and the latest is April 25.

Because of this varying date of Easter, commercial growers have to force this flower into bloom to meet the specified date each year, which takes a lot of "know how". The process starts about 17 weeks before a plant is shipped to retailers.

This includes controlled fertilizing, lighting and watering and a pre-cooling period. They have found that high temperatures hasten flowering and cooler ones delay it. It is necessary, for a profitable season, to calculate properly for the plants to reach the market at Easter time, whether it is early in the season or late.

These plants have grown in ideal situations in greenhouses, and when taken home, it would be best to give them careful care also. It is important to remember that they have been fertilized by the grower and will not need fertilizing while they are inside, where they need bright, indirect light in comfortable inside temperature of about 70 degrees.

At night place them in the coolest part of your house. The cooler the longer it will prolong their blossoms. Remember to remove faded flowers (and their stems) as they develop. Each flower should last about a week.

Make sure the drainage hole is not obstructed, but do not over water as these lilies could be subject to rotting if there is not proper drainage. Water only when the soil feels dry to the touch.

When all danger of frost has past, they can be put outside. All lilies grow from a scaly bulb. Remember that this lily has been forced to bloom according to the Easter date that year and will not bloom at Easter next year, but at the time its natural time clock goes off, which is usually in June or July.

When planting outside, it is important to select a site that is well drained. No bulbs will survive if planted in a soggy spot. Work a liberal amount of compost or any other organic matter into the topsoil and dig a large hole, remembering that any plant needs a generous sized hole for its new home. Plant your Easter lily at least an inch deeper than it grew in the pot. Just dig a large hole and plant, soil and all.

After it has finished flowering, it may flower a little more in the fall. Then it will get its recycling back to what nature intended, a summertime bloom.

Enjoy your Easter now and in years to come.

Remember when our parents said to us, "If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times not to do that?"

So it is with this column regarding the care of the foliage of spring flowering bulbs. DO NOT CUT OFF THE FOLIAGE FOR AT LEAST EIGHT WEEKS. This is a crucial time for the bulbs as they are taking in food for next years' flowers and they need their leaves to manufacture that food.

Also, it is good to give them an after blooming fertilizer because their foliage continues to grow one to two inches (daffodils and tulips) after flowering.

Authorities used to say the foliage should be left until it has died down naturally, and we used to tie it over and fasten it with rubber bands or braid it like a little girl's pigtails, but Robert Dingwall of the Horticultural News Service in St. Louis says that these processes cut off the supply of food to the bulb to be stored for next years' flowers.

Mr. Dingwall also says the flowerheads should be removed following blooming to keep seed pods from forming. He suggests inter planting with annuals and perennial plants that will be available at that time to camouflage the spent foliage.

It is true that foliage does become "ratty" looking. There have been some who have complained about the daffodil plantings of Vision 2000 after blooming is finished. In fact, someone took it upon themselves to mow the daffodil foliage in one on the beds last year. Result--no blooms this year.

These beds are beautiful each spring with their "host of golden daffodils, fluttering and dancing in the breeze." (William Wordsworth, 1804).