Do I Need to Clip My Tiger Lilies?

Deadheading

• When tiger lily blossoms fade, the wilted flower body detracts from the appearance of your plant. Deadheading, or clipping back the spent bloom, improves your plant's appearance and can actually promote more blooms. By removing the spent flower, you encourage the plant to use its energy to create new flowers instead of to develop seeds. Tiger lilies should be deadheaded whenever blossoms fade. To deadhead, pinch off the old bloom with your fingers or use clippers.

Clipping Stems

• When all your tiger lilies have passed, you should clip back the flower stems as part of a garden cleanup. The stems offer no aesthetic advantage. You can also cut off all the tiger lily leaves without harming your plant, since tiger lilies are perennial bulbs. Cut the stems down to 1 or 2 inches above the ground, using garden clippers.

Considerations

• While clipping back both tiger lily blossoms and stems can improve the vitality and appearance of your plant, it's not something you absolutely have to do. If you don't have time to deadhead plants, your flowers will not suffer. If you don't remove dead foliage, your plant will look unattractive but in most cases won't suffer. One exception is disease: If your lilies had a disease or pest problem, you want to trim the plant back in winter or you risk harboring the problem for another year.

Time Frame

• Deadheading should occur regularly as part of your garden checkup; since blooms die at different times, there's no one "time frame" to suggest. If you plan to clip back the tiger lily bulbs, wait until you've had a couple of hard frosts and the stems have turned brown, then cut them. You can also cut them back in the spring, but there's no advantage to leaving them over winter.