When to Harvest Lilies (depending on when you need them)
Lilies are fast becoming one of my favorite flowers, not only for their simple elegance and range of varieties, but for the flexibility they give me depending on when I harvest. Did you know that:
Lilies are like tulips in that they can be held in the cooler for a month? And you don’t need to hold them with the bulb!
When harvested earlier, they continue to color up and mature in the cooler while being a bit more robust than their fragile self when the blooms start to open
This video goes into detail about the various stages of harvest and this post serves as a “one-pager”, summarizing the video with some more detail.
Harvesting for 3-4 weeks out: Harvest at the first sign of color on the FIRST bud.
You can see for some of the lighter pink buds, they are JUST starting to color up. None of these heads are starting to lift and this gives me alot of leeway to hold them in the cooler. I could hypothetically harvest even earlier, but the tradeoff is I may not get as many heads that will bloom successfully
Advantage: Lilies are the least fragile at this stage. Makes it easy to wrap in paper, store in the cooler (especially if you have limited space) and gives you the most amount of time to store them. If you have an event a month out, this is when you should be harvesting.
Disadvantage: My personal experience shows some of the other smaller, immature buds may not fully bloom. So by holding off for cutting, you increase the chance of those smaller buds blooming.
Harvesting for 1-2 weeks out: Harvest when bud shows a bit more color and secondary/tertiary buds show color.
Bud circled is just starting to crack. This is Corcovado (OT Hybrid), which is a pale yellow so all of the other buds don’t look ready, but they are bc we can see the first bud is cracking! This stem will hold in the cooler for at least a week though by the end of that week, the first bud will definitely have opened at least 50-75%.
Advantage: There’s a sweet spot where when you harvest at this stage, you maximize the number of heads that will bloom while having a stem that isn’t at its most fragile state
Disadvantage: You can hold these in the cooler, but it is likely at the end of 5 days, they will start to open (not a bad thing if this works out for your timing)
Harvesting for same week (1-5 days): Harvest when the first bud is either starting to lift/open or when the bud looks like it is “cracking”
The bottom right buds are a great example of the latest stage I would harvest due to how fragile they get as they open. Especially with a white lily, the bruises will be easily seen. But sometimes, life happens and you harvest late. Still totally useable, just less flexibility in holding in a cooler. This stage would be GREAT if you needed these for an event in a few days. Just keep them out in room temp and all of the buds will open! And remember, because lilies have a fantastic vase life, you could hypothetically keeps these out in room temp for over a week, let ALL the blooms open and use them for an event (assuming you are the designer because transporting completely open blooms to a florist would be asking for a disaster!)
Advantage: Best for retail markets where customers want to see an example of what the lilies will look like or for florists who may need the lilies in 3-4 days
Disadvantage: The lily is at its most FRAGILE state. Not only are the heads more likely to drop off if you're not careful, but they will also bruise, even if you bump them into each other so be very careful!! I don’t like harvesting at this stage but rather harvesting at the previous stage (1-2 weeks out), wrapping them in paper, and then allowing them to open in the paper.
Variables to watch out for
Temperature & day length: High temps will definitely accelerate how a lily matures. You’ll find that when nights are cooler, the lily will take its time to color up and you have more opportunity to wait for more buds to color up before the first one opens. At the height of summer and around summer solstice where it’s hot and the days are long, it’s not uncommon for the first bud to begin cracking open while the other buds feel like they’re barely even colored!
This photo is a great example where night time temps were still cool enough to allow ALL of the buds to begin coloring up. In July, it’s unlikely all 3-4 buds would be this colored without the first bud opening. But this is a GREAT stage to harvest because none of the buds have begun to lift so it will store well in the cooler (3 weeks in my situation) AND not be fragile. This was taken in early June (long day length but still cooler temps!)
Variety/Color: Darker colored lilies are the easiest to know when to harvest because of the color. White and pale yellow lilies tend to stay more “green” until the first petal lifts. For this reason, I usually harvest my white lilies when the first bud has petals starting to lift.
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