A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 Lily Coming Back! Advice?

Hi everyone! Thanks to your tips, my beautiful potted Mona Lisa lily is sending two tiny shoots up from the container. I am so excited. Now, here in CA we won't get a hard freeze, but is there anything I should do to help keep her safe? I never did prune back last year's dead stalks (too afraid). Should I just go for it? Prune down to the dirt?

Thanks for helping me out! This is what happens when I get sucked into buying something because it looks "so pretty"!

Jen

If you've kept the pot outside, you shouldn't need to do anything special as it is acclimated to outdoors conditions. Just watch the dryness if you don't get any rain. It shouldn't need a lot of water as long as it's still cool out, but it will need more later as it starts to grow and the temperatures warm up.

Go ahead and prune the old stems down to the ground. They're just empty husks now. You won't hurt a thing.

If your stalks that you didn't prune back are brown, then they are dead stalks & yes you should prune them back. That is just cleaning up the plant and will not harm it, especially since the new growth has started.