What would a summer garden be without lilies, so luscious and at the same time so delicate? Cannas, which we think of as flamboyant, look perfectly inscrutable alongside lilies; they’re loud and extravagant, but they don’t draw you in like lilies, they don’t make you want to lean down and lift the flower and breathe the perfume, as do roses.

In my view there are two kinds of lilies. First the old lovelies, the ones with elegant nodding trumpets like the Madonna lily, or the Turk’s Cap lilies with reflexed petals. Lilium henryi, chalcedonicum and our native Martagon lily are good examples. Second, there are the squat modern lilies whose flowers face upwards like a knot of tuba-players; lots of colour and bolt upright, but short on grace. I go for the old lovelies every time and for me the loveliest of the lovelies is Lilium regale and its hybrids, regale lilies, as gardeners call them affectionately, pronounced rig-gaily. As July looms, the big pots of regales on my terrace come into their own, filling the evening air with the richest of perfumes. Lilies should reek; it’s part of their job. The Turk’s Caps may be exotic but they can’t manage perfume, although the little yellow Turk’s Cap, Lilium pyrenaicum, such a stalwart of cool northern gardens, actually stinks of fox. There is every sense in growing regales in pots as you can enjoy them close-to while they are in full fling, then tuck the pots away somewhere less prominent while they die down. You can stand them behind other pots, of purple-leaved cannas or tetrapanax, plants whose foliage is of a scale to match the lilies’ bold trumpets. Just be careful not to stand them too close to chairs since the dark pollen from those dancing oblong anthers stains fabrics horribly; nose-ends briefly too, if you get too close.

It’s hard to beat the plain species Lilium regale, its white trumpets bearing a plummy purple bloom down the back of each petal and opening to show a yellow throat. It’s rich and gorgeous but stops short of flashy.

I tend to put three bulbs in a big plastic pot say 25cm across , growing them that way for two to three seasons, after which the bulbs have shrunk a little, even with good feeding. I then plant them out in the garden or into a corner of the veg patch, for picking. In a vase they are wonderfully luxurious, but you have to watch out for that pollen as well as for sticky nectar dripping on to polished surfaces. They are easy to raise from seed, which is plentiful.

For a more exotic look there is the variety ‘African Queen’, which has all the perfume and elegance of its parent but is the strangest of colours, somewhere between Caramac and lipstick, but softly so. It’s not one of those brassy lilies. The other classic variety is ‘Golden Splendour’, which again has all those same strengths but a sunnier demeanour. ‘Pink Perfection’ is definitely the plummy end of pink.

Flowering at chest-height, regales need a decent weight of compost in the pot to keep them upright. They are stem-rooting lilies which put out fat feeder-roots from the stem above the bulb, and so if anything they need more compost above the bulbs than below, and to be set well down in the pot. There is a temptation, therefore, to put them in tall, narrow pots — pots in which you bought a rose or a clematis perhaps.

Don’t. Go for a pot with a good wide base, and if you feel it needs four bulbs to fill it then fine. All the more perfume on summer nights.

Question time

I have promised a neighbour some lily of the valley crowns from my ever-increasing patch. Could you please advise me on when to lift the crowns?

Mrs J. Nunn, Petts Wood, Kent

A lily of the valley will move at almost any time of the year if the roots are in active growth. I know the little underground buds — pips — are sold dry in winter, but really they do much better when they are lifted and planted again straight away, before they can dry out, and while all those fat running roots that link the pips have had no time to shrivel. That way, even in full leaf, they seem to survive. So if your neighbour wants some, I’d say no time like the present, so long as the soil is thoroughly moist when you do the deed and they are well watered in. There are people, I know, who hate lily of the valley for its ability to colonise densely but, frankly, when it’s got as far as you want it to, you just chop through the patch and rip out what you don’t want. It’s worth it to be able to pick great fragrant bunches of the stuff for a dining table. The leaves turn attractively yellow in autumn, too; what more could you want? And autumn-flowering Cyclamen hederifolium thrives if planted among it — a great combination.

In December I had to prune an alpina clematis for a fence to be erected. It has now made a lot of new growth and is about 7ft high. Unfortunately, it has not flowered. Should I prune it back to around 4ft now, in order to encourage flowers next year?

Mrs C. Virdi, Carshalton

You will get flowers again next year. Clematis alpina (left) flowers on last year’s growth just like its larger cousin, Clematis montana, only slightly earlier; April- May is the usual time. No flowers this year since you chopped off all the flowering growth. All that alpina varieties (and the similar Clematis macropetala) need now is to be left alone. They are pruned, lightly, in late spring after flowering.

stephen.anderton@thetimes.co.uk

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