I have no idea if there could be something in the soil, but you might just have a mix of colours that don't all bloom every year, KWIM?

I'm sort of confused by what kinds of lilies you have exactly, if they have bulblets on the stems they will be Lilium tigrinum (the name has been changed to L. flav-something but I'm too lazy to look it up) and they are quite aggressive. There are red and yellow forms but they are much less vigorous. I have the yellow ones and they haven't increased much in over 10 years.

If they don't have bulblets on the stems you could be describing Asiatic hybrids or Martagons or...

Gil, she mentioned "Turk's Cap" so those are martagons. As for the others, so many people call all lilies "tiger lilies". Squirellette, if yours were the wild orange ones, i have those and they HAVE changed colour over the years. They are now a deep, deep red. It's really strange!

I haven't had the experience of hybrid Asiatic or Oriental liles changing colour, but i've found that some of my daylilies are slightly different in colour every year.

I have both lilium superbum and lilium tigrinum, they all get the bulblets. The trigrinum are the new ones that went to red and the superbum are the ones that went yellow, the yellow really perplexes me as I grew them all from the same seed packet and the color was totally stable for the 5 years before we moved. It showed up the next year after we moved. They are all agressive growers and the clumps seem to double every year which is great except that they are the wrong color and change every year. I will have to thin them in the spring so I am worried about more changing if I move them and that is what is triggering the color change. Oh well it would be no fun if it wasn't an adventure

I have exactly the same problem. A friend gave me some peach and pink lilies one year and they bloomed beautifully. This year they are ALL coming up orange. Last year my friend had me come over to her house and take some pictures of her lilies. One group that used to be all pink ended up the next year being yellow, pink, and white. She never had any yellow or white ones before. I think it has to be something to do with the weather not the soil so much. We had an extremely large amount of snow and rain this winter and spring and going into a very hot summer.

I have heard of bred colors reverting to parent color. Mine have been stable for the last couple years, I did finally move them this spring so I am waiting to see what happens. The orange and the yellow/purple are fairly prolific, the straight yellow does not seem to be multiplying much. All the babies from the bulblets on the stems have come up orange so far but it is a bit soon for the post color change ones to be blooming yet

A lot of hybrids do revert in a few years. Also I had some pink and some white Shamrocks and planted them in the same pot. Next time they bloomed they were all white. I talked to Stan about it and apparently there is a reason for it but I can't remember what it is. Will have to ask again next time I see him.

I think there's some hanky panky going on within the lily family. LOL!

I have a small patch of burgundy ones, mixed with yellow and burgundy ones, and I love both. They just better behave or I'm going to have to separate them !

Just curious if anyone knows how long Tiger Lilies live? Dad has a few here that I swear have been here for forty years. Is that possible? I moved the poor things from the north west corner of the house a few years ago and they seem to be happier. Will post pics as soon as they open.

I think those original old tiger lilies will live forever. Worst that can happen they could choke themselves out by becoming to crowded with no space to expand.I ahve had the same patch for well over 20 yrs .

They don't seem to be as happy this year. Maybe it is my imagination or maybe they got too much rain. They are just about ready to bloom.

Beegood ~ We should go plant shopping today. It is so beautiful that I should be out in the garden but prefer air conditioning in the heat of the afternoon. You up for coffee at Greenland?

Would love to but spending time with my grand daughter and then have to drive her to the airport to fly home to Surrey.
Lets set up something for next week OK?

Sounds good to me. You can email me @ gardenofangels200@shaw.ca

Can't post with the same subject heading. Got rejected. Who knows why. Anyways I will EML you early next week.

A silly glitch in the program I suspect. :( Email works just fine. :)

No, it won't let you answer again soon after you have already. I suspect it's some kind of anti-flaming thing. :rolling my eyes: I just add some extra spaces in the title of the thread and then i can post.

I would love to have the surprise of my tiger lilies changing colours. They are always reliably orange. Jean

Hey Jean, Mine too! I guess that's the default color!! :(