It’s Time to Give Lilies Another Look
How specialty cut flower growers can help shape the future of one of the world’s oldest flowers.
By Grace Lam, Fivefork Farms
ASCFG Northeast Regional Director
Every flower has a reputation.
Peonies are romantic.
Sunflowers are cheerful.
Dahlias are dramatic.
Ranunculus are elegant.
Lilies?
Ask ten people, and you’ll probably hear words like:
Funeral flowers
Overpowering fragrance
Messy pollen
And that’s exactly why I went to Holland
I thought I knew lilies. After all, I’ve been growing them for years. Like many of you, I’ve harvested thousands of stems, watched countless varieties open in the cooler, and learned which cultivars customers gravitate toward. Every season teaches me something new about this remarkable crop.
Then, this past June, I had the pleasure of attending Dutch Lily Days in Holland, a four-day open house where thirteen Dutch lily bulb exporters opened their trial greenhouses to a world-wide audience.
Imagine walking into greenhouse after greenhouse filled with lilies—not hundreds of stems, but tens of thousands. Every breeder showcases years of work, displaying new introductions alongside experimental seedlings that may not reach the market for another decade. Around every corner is another color you’ve never seen, another flower form you didn’t know existed, another reminder that the lily is far more diverse than most people realize.
By the end of the week, I wasn’t just impressed. I was challenged.
Because somewhere between the exporters’ presentations, greenhouse tours, and conversations with people who have dedicated their careers to lilies, I realized something that has stayed with me ever since.
In North America, we don’t have a lily problem. We have a perception problem.
Ask someone outside of our industry to describe a lily and you’ll probably hear a familiar list. They’re too fragrant. They’re funeral flowers. They’re messy. They stain your clothes with pollen. Maybe they’ll mention the orange tiger lilies growing along an old stone wall or the white Easter lilies that appear every spring.
None of those answers are wrong. They’re simply incomplete. The modern lily has evolved dramatically over the past decade, yet public perception hasn’t evolved with it.
Walking through the rows and rows of lilies, it felt a bit like seeing an old friend after twenty years and realizing they’ve completely reinvented themselves. There were pollen-free lilies that solved one of consumers’ biggest complaints. Double-flowered varieties that looked more like peonies or garden roses than traditional lilies. Upward-facing blooms designed to present beautifully in bouquets. Soft champagne, blush, peach, and cream colors that seemed perfectly suited for today’s wedding work. Dramatic brush marks, freckles, contrasting throats, and blooms bigger than the largest dinnerplate dahlia I’ve ever grown. There were forms that challenged everything I thought a lily could be.
More than once I stopped in my tracks. “That’s a lily?”
That’s exactly the reaction we should want from our customers.
The Flower Has Changed. The Story Hasn’t.
As I sat through each exporter’s presentation, one thing became increasingly clear as the week went on. The lily breeding community has never stopped innovating. In fact, they’re moving faster than ever.
Every year breeders evaluate thousands upon thousands of seedlings. Only a tiny fraction will ever become commercial varieties. The process takes years of crossing, selection, disease evaluation, propagation, and market testing before a single bulb is ready for growers.
It’s painstaking work. It’s expensive. And it’s fueled by optimism. Every breeder I met believes the next generation of lilies can be better than the last.
Better vase life. Stronger stems. Improved disease resistance. More interesting flower forms. New colors. New genetics. New possibilities.
Standing in those greenhouses, surrounded by decades of innovation, I couldn’t help but wonder why so few American consumers ever get to experience this side of lilies. Then I realized the answer. Consumers only know the flowers we introduce them to.
Walk through the floral department of most grocery stores and you’ll likely find one or perhaps two lily options (most likely a big white oriental and a big pink oriental). Most are imported and represent only a tiny fraction of what’s available today. If that’s the only exposure consumers have to lilies, it’s no surprise their perception hasn’t changed
Now think about how much the specialty cut flower industry has changed consumer preferences over the past twenty years. Most customers once had no idea what lisianthus was. Ranunculus was unfamiliar outside the floral industry. Dinnerplate dahlias, specialty tulips, heirloom chrysanthemums, butterfly ranunculus, flowering branches, and countless other crops were once considered unusual.
Today many customers seek them out by name. Our best customers KNOW their flowers. That didn’t happen because consumers suddenly woke up one morning asking for lisianthus. It happened because growers showed them something different.
We posted photographs. We shared stories. We explained why these flowers were special. We put them into bouquets. We educated florists. We brought them to farmers’ markets. Heck, we probably gave free samples at some point to get customers just to try them.
Little by little, consumers began asking for “those purple bell-flowers” (aka campanula), or when chocolate cosmos were coming back, or that bulb flower that smells like onion and looks like fireworks (Allium shubertii). As specialty cut flower growers, we’ve always been more than flower producers. We’ve been ambassadors for flowers people didn’t yet know they loved.
I believe lilies deserve that same opportunity.
Looking Beyond North America
One of the most fascinating conversations I had during Dutch Lily Days wasn’t about a particular variety at all. It was about markets.
Many of the world’s lily breeding programs are responding to tremendous demand from Asia, where lilies are deeply woven into cultural traditions and remain one of the most important cut flowers. As a result, breeding priorities naturally reflect those markets. Bold reds, vibrant yellows, striking contrast, and dramatic colors continue to play an important role because that’s what growers and consumers are buying. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Breeders should respond to the markets that support them. But it also made me wonder: What if North America became a stronger voice in that conversation?
What if growers here consistently demonstrated demand for soft wedding palettes—champagnes, blushes, peaches, warm apricots, elegant whites with subtle markings, or sophisticated doubles that barely resemble the lilies many consumers picture today
What if pollen-free varieties became not just a novelty, but an expectation? What if florists began asking specifically for upward-facing lilies because they performed better in their designs?
Those trends don’t begin in breeding greenhouses. They begin in our fields. Every bulb we choose to grow sends a signal. Every bouquet we sell teaches a customer something new. Every florist who discovers a variety they love creates demand that travels backward through wholesalers, exporters, bulb companies, and eventually reaches the breeder who is deciding which seedlings deserve another year of evaluation.
We often think of ourselves as the end of the supply chain. In reality, we’re one of its most influential voices. And perhaps we underestimate just how much influence we have.
For all the innovation taking place in Holland, the future of the lily won’t be determined by breeders alone. It will be determined by whether growers around the world decide those new varieties deserve a place in their fields and, more importantly, whether consumers decide they deserve a place in their homes.
That’s why I believe ASCFG members occupy one of the most important positions in the entire floral industry. We’re the bridge. We connect decades of breeding work with someone buying flowers on their way home from work. We’re often the first people to place an unfamiliar flower into a customer’s hands. We’re the ones who answer questions at farmers’ markets.
“What is this flower?” …. “Does it have pollen?” … “I’ve never seen a lily like this before.”
Those conversations matter far more than we realize. Every time we introduce a customer to something unexpected, we’re quietly expanding their idea of what flowers can be.
Changing the Story
For years, we’ve become exceptionally good at telling the stories behind our flowers. We explain that ranunculus are cool-season blooms. We talk about the fragrance of sweet peas. We celebrate the fleeting beauty of peonies. We tell customers why local flowers are harvested at a different stage than imported flowers. We’ve learned that people don’t simply buy flowers. They buy stories.
Perhaps lilies need a new story. Instead of apologizing for their fragrance, let’s explain that not all lilies are fragrant. Instead of worrying about pollen stains, let’s show customers pollen-free varieties. Let’s teach them to pick off the anthers, the small pod at the end of the lily’s stamens where pollen is produced, just at the flowers open.
Instead of assuming lilies belong only in sympathy work, let’s feature them in bridal bouquets, centerpiece arrangements, and market bouquets where their elegance can surprise people.
Instead of selling “pink lilies,” let’s proudly use variety names. Flower growers understand the power of naming.
A customer may forget “a pink dahlia.” They remember ‘Café au Lait.’ The same can happen with lilies.
When we tell people they’re buying ‘Pollenless Double Oriental Lily Lotus Queen,’ or ‘Zelmira: Upward facing OT hybrid Lily” or ‘Double Roselily Angela,’ we’re inviting them into the story of that flower. Variety names spark curiosity. They make flowers memorable. They encourage customers to ask questions and seek them out again.
That’s how loyalty begins.
Small Choices, Big Influence
It’s easy to underestimate our influence because most of us farm on a relatively small scale. One acre. Five acres. Ten acres. A few high tunnels. A handful of farmers’ markets. One florist account. One CSA. One wedding at a time. Individually, our decisions may seem small. Collectively, they become a movement.
Imagine if just a few hundreds of us ASCFG members decided to trial just one crate of an exceptional modern lily next season. Imagine each of those growers introducing that flower to hundreds of customers at their farmers markets and promoted on their Instagram and other social media feeds. That’s tens of thousands of stems, hundreds of customer interactions, each one teaching someone that lilies have changed. Imagine florists beginning to request those varieties because they’ve seen how beautifully they perform. Imagine wholesalers recognizing increased demand. Imagine brokers placing larger orders. Imagine bulb companies noticing changing preferences. Eventually, those signals travel all the way back to the breeding greenhouse.
The next generation of lilies isn’t shaped only by genetics. It’s shaped by demand. That’s an exciting thought. Because demand isn’t something that happens to us… it’s something we help create.
As I flew home from Holland, I kept thinking about all the flowers I had seen that week. There were certainly favorites—varieties I hope to grow, stems I couldn’t stop photographing, colors I wished every florist in America could see.
But what stayed with me wasn’t a single variety. It was a realization.
As specialty cut flower growers, we’ve never been content simply to grow what everyone else grows. We’re curious. We’re willing to experiment. We’re constantly looking for flowers that surprise and delight our customers. That’s exactly why I believe we’re uniquely positioned to help write the next chapter of the lily’s story. Not because we need another crop. But because we have an opportunity to reshape the way people think about one of the world’s oldest flowers.
A century from now, no one will remember which varieties were displayed at Dutch Lily Days in 2026. But perhaps they’ll remember this era as the moment lilies found a new audience in North America—not because breeders suddenly created better flowers, but because growers decided to tell a better story.
And it’s a story worth telling.
Modern lilies check many of the boxes we value as specialty growers. They have exceptional vase life, continue opening beautifully after harvest, ship well, and provide a dramatic focal flower that immediately captures a customer’s attention. Today’s breeding has also produced an incredible palette for weddings, retail bouquets, and event work—colors, forms, and flower types that simply didn’t exist a generation ago.
The next great lily may very well be blooming in a breeding greenhouse somewhere in Holland today. Whether it becomes the flower everyone is talking about ten years from now may depend less on the breeder who created it than on the grower willing to plant it, the florist willing to design with it, and the customer willing to fall in love with it.
I hope that grower is one of us.
Every generation of specialty cut flower growers has introduced America to flowers it didn’t know it wanted…
We did it with lisianthus.
We did it with ranunculus.
We did it with specialty tulips.
We did it with dahlias.
Maybe the next flower waiting for its moment is the lily.
Maybe it’s time we all gave lilies another look.