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Lilies: A Romantic History With a Guide to Cultivation
With their elegance and simplicity of form, lilies have captured the hearts of gardeners and artists for thousands of years.
The ancient Cretans and Greeks adorned frescoes with lilies, and Renaissance painters often included the Madonna Lily in paintings of the Virgin. For great flower artists such as Redouté and Ehret, the poise and grace of the lily was a gift from the gods.
These large, showy flowers, often intensely colored and deliciously fragrant, have impressed generations of gardeners. Numerous societies and nurseries specialize in the study, propagation, and distribution of lilies, and the skills of modern plant breeders have made available a greater range of blooms than ever before.
Dipping into this rich background gives you insight into the fascinating world of the lily, and offers possibilities for bringing this richness to your own home and garden
The ancient Cretans and Greeks adorned frescoes with lilies, and Renaissance painters often included the Madonna Lily in paintings of the Virgin. For great flower artists such as Redouté and Ehret, the poise and grace of the lily was a gift from the gods.
These large, showy flowers, often intensely colored and deliciously fragrant, have impressed generations of gardeners. Numerous societies and nurseries specialize in the study, propagation, and distribution of lilies, and the skills of modern plant breeders have made available a greater range of blooms than ever before.
Dipping into this rich background gives you insight into the fascinating world of the lily, and offers possibilities for bringing this richness to your own home and garden
63 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 9, 2024
Getting on a bit of a plant kick after reading about roses I thought I may as well get this book of lilies out of the way as well. The cover is charming and definitely caught my eye since I don't usually come upon covers that use perspective art to make a statement while it definitely does make it a one-of-a-kind book.
Unfortunately the book itself is rather a brief book and that does mean that not everything is going to be covered, especially with the range of subjects the author intends to cover. In Lilies, the book is split into three different categories - history, types for your garden and care/maintenance - that follow a one-page introduction that just touches on the rest of the information in the book.
For the reader they will find in the first chapter a glimpse into where wild lilies can be found at, their place in history whether as food or cures and also the fact just like tulips at one point, lilies were part of a trade before leading off into modern day lily breeders.
In the second chapter basically the reader is just given a chance to dip their toes into the various types of lilies that can be found for the garden. Instead of getting a lot of indepth information, the flowers are divided into four groups depending on the shape of their flowers. From there there is a bit of an introduction into the lily flower group type before the reader is then provided with small samples of major lilies that can be found in that group, some brief information about them (mostly color, some history) and afterwards an even smaller sample of hybrids in that group with similar information as the first.
And finally the last chapter provides the reader with information on soil preparation, spacing, planting, aftercare, propagation, growing lilies in pots, etc. There is also a brief section that explores fragrance and an even briefer section that gives the bare minimum to pests and diseases that growers may find before wrapping the book up in the divisions of lilies.
The rest of the book is a combination of quotes and heavy captions for some of the illustrations to help add to the book. Meanwhile the illustrative measures of the book were a combination of art reproductions, some brightly colored photographs although since of the size of the book and the need to include some other species the reader was given a small photograph to view.
What bothered me the most out of the whole book was the fact that so many lilies were just called by their scientific name rather than by a common name. And it was only into the section of Turk's cap lilies did some of the common names get used, which was a relief to me.
Secondly since of the prior mentioned size of the book and the need to showcase more than one type of lily when the book provided the reader with photographs they weren't the best. In some of them due to the presentation of the tepals you couldn't get a good eyeful of the inside of the flower or the outside when there was mention of the colors it added.
Although the book did include a great lot of coverage for lilies I just found it too cluttered and without the amateur in mind thus I would say that it is most definitely not a book for someone like me in mind.
Unfortunately the book itself is rather a brief book and that does mean that not everything is going to be covered, especially with the range of subjects the author intends to cover. In Lilies, the book is split into three different categories - history, types for your garden and care/maintenance - that follow a one-page introduction that just touches on the rest of the information in the book.
For the reader they will find in the first chapter a glimpse into where wild lilies can be found at, their place in history whether as food or cures and also the fact just like tulips at one point, lilies were part of a trade before leading off into modern day lily breeders.
In the second chapter basically the reader is just given a chance to dip their toes into the various types of lilies that can be found for the garden. Instead of getting a lot of indepth information, the flowers are divided into four groups depending on the shape of their flowers. From there there is a bit of an introduction into the lily flower group type before the reader is then provided with small samples of major lilies that can be found in that group, some brief information about them (mostly color, some history) and afterwards an even smaller sample of hybrids in that group with similar information as the first.
And finally the last chapter provides the reader with information on soil preparation, spacing, planting, aftercare, propagation, growing lilies in pots, etc. There is also a brief section that explores fragrance and an even briefer section that gives the bare minimum to pests and diseases that growers may find before wrapping the book up in the divisions of lilies.
The rest of the book is a combination of quotes and heavy captions for some of the illustrations to help add to the book. Meanwhile the illustrative measures of the book were a combination of art reproductions, some brightly colored photographs although since of the size of the book and the need to include some other species the reader was given a small photograph to view.
What bothered me the most out of the whole book was the fact that so many lilies were just called by their scientific name rather than by a common name. And it was only into the section of Turk's cap lilies did some of the common names get used, which was a relief to me.
Secondly since of the prior mentioned size of the book and the need to showcase more than one type of lily when the book provided the reader with photographs they weren't the best. In some of them due to the presentation of the tepals you couldn't get a good eyeful of the inside of the flower or the outside when there was mention of the colors it added.
Although the book did include a great lot of coverage for lilies I just found it too cluttered and without the amateur in mind thus I would say that it is most definitely not a book for someone like me in mind.
September 3, 2014
Lilies: A Romantic History with a Guide to Cultivation by Brian Mathew (Running Press 1993)(635.934). This is a volume from Running Press’ Garden Flower series. It covers plant biology, care of lilies, and a catalog of species. My rating: 7/10, finished 2/5/10.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews