Hottest 2016 Lilies to Plant in North America in Zones 3 to 10 in May

Summary: The hottest 2016 lilies can be planted as early as May Day or Mother’s Day or as late as autumn in cold and heat hardiness zones 3 to 9 in North America.

The Garden Club of Virginia's 2016 Lily Collection includes white-tipped raspberry 'Café Noir': Living Colour Bulbs @livingcolourblb via Twitter Jan. 28, 2015

All lilies in general and lilies of the valley in particular are associated with celebrations of May Day, whose festivities can be particularly joyous by buying and sustaining the hottest 2016 lilies.

Bright, fragrant lilies of the valley (Convallaria majalis), known nationwide as muguets, bring May Day celebrants to France, where invasive tendencies and poisonous properties are monitored. Continental culture can be accessed, and many imported and some local-grown lilies admired, in May Day celebrations on North America’s plucky Saint Pierre et Miquelon archipelago.

Another form of celebration deserves consideration for those May Day celebrants who have visits scheduled to France and Saint Pierre et Miquelon in 2017, not 2016. The Garden Club of Virginia (GCV) enumerates each year’s top lilies, in advance of May Day and of what now is the 74th annual lily show.

‘Café Noir,’ ‘Fusion,’ ‘Happy Sunrise,’ ‘Morini,’ ‘Pedara’ and ‘Royal Kiss’ fill the floral niches established by the Garden Club of Virginia for the hottest 2016 lilies.

The Asiatic lilies known as ‘Café Noir’ or as ‘Dixie Jazz’ give cream-tipped, raspberry-centered, unscented, unspotted blooms on 36-inch- (91.44-centimeter-) high stems in June and July. ‘Fusion’ hybridizes northern California’s native red-tipped, yellow-spotted lily and the Liukiu Islands’ graceful, long-leafed Japanese Easter lily into 5-foot- (1.52-meter-) high, June-blooming, July-blossoming and August-flowering stems. Gold-flushed, orange-throated ‘Happy Sunrise’ blooming on 3-foot (0.91-meter) stems in May and June is reminiscent of the Stone & Payne hybrid ‘Connecticut King’ of the 1960s. 'Morini' joins ‘Happy Sunrise’ at the floral spectrum’s beautiful yellows in July while transitioning from buttered cream- to peachy pink-like colors on 4-foot- (1.22-meter-) tall stems.

‘Pedara’ keeps company with ‘Royal Kiss’ in the hottest 2016 lilies as L.A. crosses whose large buds and round-ended petals reflect crossing Longi with Asian lilies. ‘Pedara’ lets the immediate area fill with a natural, subtle, welcome fragrance, just as all but the scentless ‘Café Noir’ and the unscented ‘Happy Sunrise’ do. Buff- to champagne-colored blooms that may or may not be sprinkled with spots make appearances atop 3- to 4-foot- (0.91- to 1.22-meter-) high stems in July.

Collectors and cultivators immediately note in ‘Royal Kiss’ evidence of the same breeding line responsible for the dark-speckled, gold-centered pink blooms in ‘Royal Sunset’ L.A. lilies. ‘Royal Kiss’ offers black-centered, red-tipped blooms, whose color scheme repeats that of June- and July-flowering ‘Red Alert’ L.A. lilies, on 3-foot- (0.91-meter-) tall stems in June.

The hottest 2016 lilies identified by the Garden Club of Virginia, headquartered in Richmond, provide perennial color, structure and texture through a minimum of annual efforts.

The 4.72- to 7.87-inch (12- to 20-centimeter) bulbs queue up best triply clustered in alkaline, 5.5 to 6.5 pH level, humus-rich, semi-shaded or sunlit, well-drained soils. Ideal arrangements require 4- to 6-inch (10.16- to 15.24-centimeter) depths, 5- to 8-inch (12.7- to 20.32-centimeter) distances within trios and 3-foot (0.91-meter) spaces from other trios. Lilies survive zones 3 to 10’s minus 40 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 to minus 1.7 degrees Celsius) ranges, and lower, when mulched each winter.

The hottest 2016 lilies bedded, containerized or soil-bound turn countdowns to 2017’s May Day celebrations in France and on Saint Pierre et Miquelon into best-in-show trophies.

'Connecticut King' lily: Lilium 'Connecticut King' of 1960s finds golden echoes in Garden Club of Virginia's featuring of lookalike 'Happy Sunrise' in 2016 lily show: Uleli, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

The Garden Club of Virginia's 2016 Lily Collection includes white-tipped raspberry 'Café Noir': Living Colour Bulbs‏ @livingcolourblb via Twitter Jan. 28, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/livingcolourblb/status/560402033849954304

Lilium 'Connecticut King': Uleli, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lilium_%27Connecticut_King%27.jpgjpg

For further information:

“Garden Club of Virginia 2016 Lily Collection Amended.” Garden Club of Virginia.
Available @ https://www.gcvirginia.org/warehouse/fm/documents/flower_collections/2016%20Lily%20Collection%20Amended.pdf

Living Colour Bulbs‏ @livingcolourblb. 28 January 2015. "New lily this season -- Café Noir." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/livingcolourblb/status/560402033849954304

Marriner, Derdriu. "'Flame Creeper' Azaleas: Virginia Historic Garden Week's Hottest 2016 Azaleas." Earth and Space News. Saturday, April 30, 2016.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/04/flame-creeper-azaleas-virginia-historic.html

M.E. 30 April 2015. “Un brin de bonheur.” France Télévisions > Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.
Available @ http://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/saintpierremiquelon/2015/04/30/un-brin-de-bonheur-252353.html