I need prompting to plant lilies and I expect you do too. Modern sales patterns mean the new stocks arrive in the next weeks, between the tulips and the gladioli, when we are not thinking about planting bulbs. But I have had such fun with them in the past few years that I will share with you my current thinking.

In most gardens, the best bets are the lovely trumpet-flowered Regale varieties, one of the essential scents in early July. They do not prefer shade. They do not like to be top-dressed with layers of rotted manure. They persist fairly well from year to year. In all these habits, then, they are unlike most other lilies. They remain my first choices for everyone, although I am not really reconciled to their habit of leaning forwards on their stems and needing a discreet stick to straighten them in a narrow bed.