If you were ever curious how an Easter lily is grown, read on.
Easter lilies have a very small market date unlike many other flowers. Since Easter Sunday varies each year, the timing of our crop is very important. Most of the Easter lily bulbs are field grown in Northern California and Southern Oregon. In those fields, the bulbs are dug up, washed, and graded.
After the bulbs are graded, they are placed in wooden crates with peat moss to help keep them moist. The crates are placed in a cooler set at 35 to 45 degrees. In order to set flower buds, Easter lily bulbs require 1,000 hours (42 days) of cooling. Lily bulbs with less than 1,000 hours of cooling will have low flower bud counts. More than 1,000 hours of cooling will produce a lily with a higher flower bud count but these plants are more challenging to get to bloom in time for Easter Sunday.
At Musselman Greenhouses, our bulbs are cooled by our bulb supplier. They ship them to us after the bulbs receive 1,000 hours of cooling. Easter lilies must be planted about 120 days from Easter Sunday in order to bloom on time. After the bulbs are planted into pots, we grow them at 63 degrees for four weeks. By week 4, we lower the temperature to 57 degrees so the flowers can develop. Lowering the temperature slows down the plant metabolism so each plant produces 1 to 2 more flowers.
While the plant is busy producing its flowers, we are calculating bud visible date. A bud visible Easter lily has buds you can see when looking down the tip of the lily. It takes about 35 days from bud visible for an Easter lily to bloom. We can speed up or slow down the bloom time of the Easter lilies by raising or lowering the temperatures in our greenhouses.
Temperature also effects the height of the Easter lilies. We aim to grow our Easter lilies between 18″ to 22″ tall. Our Easter lilies are measured twice a week. The heights are then entered into a computer program so we can see if we are on target for our height goal. Height is manipulated with growing temperatures and plant growth regulators depending on how they look in the computer program.
If everything is done correctly, our crop should flower for Easter Sunday. As the Easter shipping season approaches, I walk through the Easter lily crop each day with a bud stick to measure the buds on each plant. When the flower bud reaches about 6″ long, the plant is pulled from the greenhouse. Outside the greenhouse, the lilies are graded for bud count, boxed, and placed in a cool garage or cooler until they are shipped.
Easter lilies, along with tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, hydrangeas, begonias, gerbera daisies, and all the flowers used to celebrate Easter take lots of planning, thought, and work to look great for Easter Sunday. If folks only knew what went into growing a perfectly timed Easter lily, they would be more appreciative of the beautiful flowers.
