Grandma’s red velvet cake, rich with cocoa, is the same dark, luscious color as this enduring Hall of Famer. (Try our heirloom recipe!) Its New England-bred, triploid vigor makes it easy to grow almost anywhere, and hummingbirds love it. Asiatic, 3-5 feet, zones 4-8aS/10WC, from Washington. Chart to compare. Last offered in 2012. Our grower is building up stock and we hope to offer it again in 2014.

Is this what heaven smells like? It’s my favorite floral fragrance – lush, complex, and never too much. ‘Rubrum’ is achingly beautiful, too, with pink and white petals “all rugged with rubies and garnets, and sparkling with crystal points,” to quote the RHS’s John Lindley soon after it arrived from Japan. My wife Jane and I liked it so much we included it in our wedding 30 happy years ago. Wonderfully late blooming, 4-5 feet, zones 5-7S/9WC, from Holland. Chart to compare. Last offered in 2012. 'Rubrum' is now commercially extinct in the Netherlands, and bulbs offered by mainstream sources are L. speciosum 'Uchida'.

Magnificently tough and healthy, this statuesque beauty is topped by big, extra-fragrant, wide open, bell-like flowers with long, lovely petals that curl back dramatically from a heart full of sunshine. Virus-free, seed-grown bulbs. Trumpet, 5-6 feet, mid-to-late summer, zones 5-8S/10WC, from Oregon. Last offered in 2004. We lost our grower and haven’t found another who offers authentic stock.

‘Casa Blanca’ is a fine lily, but we like this wild ancestor of it even better. Exquisitely fragrant, its flowers are more graceful, less huge, with showier, jade-green nectaries that enhance its sparkling whiteness. Like L. speciosum rubrum it’s a form of the variable “Japan lily” which “commanded extravagant prices” (Breck, 1851) when it was first imported and became one of the Victorian era’s most popular flowers. Its late bloom extends the lily season. 4-5 feet, zones 5a-7bS/9WC, from Holland. Chart to compare. Last offered in 2012. We lost our grower but hope to find another who offers true stock of this great old species lily.

True stock! This Hall of Fame masterpiece was bred by the genius who gave the world both ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Stargazer’. It’s NOT a white L. henryi (and it’s NOT ‘Bright Star’ or ‘Lady Alice’ as some unscrupulous sources claim) but a big, sturdy, dramatic lily with narrow ivory petals that curl back from a starry heart of apricot and cinnamon — and glorious! Mid-summer, 4-5 feet, zones 5a-7bS/9WC, Oregon. Chart to compare. Last offered in 2012. Our grower is building up stock and we hope to offer it again in 2014.