If you receive an Easter Lily as a gift you can enjoy your flowers over a much longer period with just a little bit of special care. Giving your Easter lily the correct amount of light water and providing the proper temperature will help your gift plant produce beautiful flowers over at least two weeks and possibly longer if it arrives with many young unopened buds.
How To Care For Your Easter Lily
Easter lilies like bright but indirect sunlight and cool temperatures so don't locate your plant in hot,direct sunlight or near heat vents. 60-65 degrees F is the ideal daytime temperature and the plants can take even cooler nighttime temperatures.
Moving your plant to an unheated room at night will make the blooms last longer and will keep the plants from getting stressed.
Lily bulbs and plants are poisonous so keep them away from children and pets.
Make sure to remove the yellow anthers from the center of the flowers. This is very important because those anthers will shed large amounts of sticky yellow pollen which will make the flowers wilt sooner. The thick pollen could also stain fabrics and furniture so don't forget this step.
Lilies prefer moist but not wet soil so under watering or over watering can be harmful. Check the soil every day and water whenever the soil feels dry.
Remove the plastic pot from its wrapping or basket when you water and let the water drain from the pot so the bulb will never be left in standing water. After the water has from the pot drained you can replace the cover.
When each Easter lily flower begins to wilt remove to make room for the new blossoms. If you skip this step you may find that some of the unopened buds will not mature because the plant will try to put its energy into making seed.
If you'd like to move your Easter lily to the garden when it has finished blooming removing the spent flowers will also help the bulb put its energy into making bulblets which will eventually grow into blooming lily plants.
Most people view Easter lilies as a "throwaway plant" believing that forced bulbs won't bloom again. But if you've followed the directions here you should be able to move it to the garden with no problems.
For instructions on growing your Easter lily gift plant in the Garden see my Xomba article:
Easter Lily Plants Don't Have To Be Discarded When The Season Is Over
Happy Easter!
