Just as holly is synonymous with Christmas, lily is the flower for the spring
holidays. More than 50 percent of house plants sold at Easter and Passover are
lilies, according to the horticultural trade group American Floral Endowment.
The Easter lily (Lilium longiflorum) grown for the U.S. commercial market comes
from a coastal region of California and Oregon but it’s originally from Japan.
Delaware has its own native lilies but if you want one blooming on your holiday
table, you better schedule a belated celebration.
Passover starts Monday and Easter is next Sunday but the trout lily, one of the
state’s earliest bloomers, doesn’t bloom until later in April.
Most of Delaware’s other native lilies bloom in mid- to late spring, and in the
case of about a dozen other species, in the summer, according to Bill McAvoy, a
botanist with the state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.
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University of Delaware’s Cooperative Extension