Orange Lily Types

Trumpet Lilies

• Trumpet lilies, named for their flowers' form, bloom from mid to late summer. Their outward-facing blossoms perfume evening gardens. These plants grow 4 to 10 feet tall. The African Queen trumpet lily group's 6 to 8 inch long flowers' bicolored petals have yellow-to-golden-orange interiors and copper-tinged purple exteriors. The Lilium henryi trumpet lily produces up-to-10-foot purple stems of narrow, green leaves. Its 2-inch, maroon-freckled, light-orange lilies have markedly backward-curving petals and contrasting red anthers. They open in clusters of as many as 20. This native Chinese trumpet lily is the ancestor of many of today's lily hybrids.

Asiatic Lilies

• Asiatic lilies kick off the annual lily display with late-spring-to-early-summer blooms. Asiatics are the most prolific lilies with bulbs multiplying year after year. Their unscented, outward-or-upward-facing flowers grow on 2- to 5-foot stems, heights appropriate for scattering throughout the perennial border. Asiatic lily "Orange Pixie" stands just 10 to 14 inches tall with an up-to-1-foot spread, good dimensions for border fronts. Two- to 3-foot L. "Enchantment" has widely flaring, intensely red-orange blooms speckled with darker red. Both cultivars perform best in partial sun and organically rich, moist, well-drained soil.

LA Hybrid Lilies

• Introduced in the 1990s, LA (Longiflorum/Asiatic) hybrid lilies resulted from the crossbreeding of the white L. longiflorum Easter lily with different Asiatic lily cultivars. They inherited the Easter lily's the petals and generous flower size, and the Asiatic lilies' flat, open flower form. They also received the Asiatics' cold-hardiness. L. "Royal Sunset" at 3 to 4 feet tall brightens early summer gardens with faintly fragrant, multicolored 4 to 6 inch flowers. Their pink-tipped, burnt-orange petals rise from dark-spotted, yellow centers. LA hybrid "Orange Tycoon's" midsummer clusters of bowl-like, soft-orange flowers open atop 2-1/2- to 3-foot stems of narrow, glossy deep-green leaves. These hybrids tolerate subzero winter temperatures in U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zones 3 and 4, respectively.

Native Species

• The United States is home to several native species of orange lilies. Turk's caps L. superbum have as many as 40 red-spotted, orange flowers on a single plant. Petals of the mid-to-late-summer blooms curved backwards so severely that the flowers resemble ancient Turkish caps. This lily grows in moist woods and wet areas from New England as far south as Alabama. Pine lily L. catesbaei at 2 feet high thrives in partly shady, wet pine woods, grasslands and bogs across the South. Each bulb produces a single, late summer bloom. The flower's downward-curving, vivid red-orange petals have purple-flecked, yellow bases and orange tips.