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Lilium Pumilum a delight to grow.

© Gary Buckley

Lilium Pumilum syn. Lilium tenuifolium is a dainty lilium, I have always found space to grow. You will still find this listed sometimes as L. tenuifolium, the name it held for a number of years. If you are buying in, rather than growing from seeds; expect the bulbs of flowering plants not to be much bigger than a marble. As you can see from the photograph, in stature this is small. To grow and appreciate this sometimes sly flowerer; you had best place it towards the front of an open bed. In truth, this species is perhaps better suited to a bulb bed or trough culture, for it loves a little lime coupled with good gritty drainage that these afford.

Here in Australia, there is a lovely amber to pale tangerine form of this often on sale, going under the name Lilium Golden Gleam.

From Lilies, A Guide for Growers and Collectors; Edward Austin McRae tells us "a select cultivar, Golden Gleam, was grown at Oregan Bulb Farms for many years. Its flowers are soft orange rather than the bright scarlet of the type. This colour form breeds true from seeds."

The yellow Bunting strain, with recessive yellow gold forms, also grows true from seed. I do not know of a supplier of these here in Australia. This was a common sight at this time of year in the cooler gardens of the most blessed Island State in the world; Tasmania.

Under ideal growing conditions, this little species native to north east Asia will put up a stem to seventeen to eighteen inches in height; carrying up to twenty fragrant, pendulous flowers of bright sealing wax scarlet of Martagon type.

Given the range in the wild, from Siberia in the north eastern part of Russia, through into northern China and into Korea; we know this lilium will do well in the cooler mountain regions of Australia and Tasmania.

I'm typing this on a dripping hot day here in Victoria, the temperature is nudging towards forty degrees Celsius; and the air is thick with smoke from burning grass fires. So even under less than ideal growing circumstance, this will prosper; though the bloom will never match that of more cooler summer realms.

Over the last couple of decades, this lilium has become a familar sight in Australian gardens. Due in part to the ease of seed germination.

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