Some varieties decline no matter how good conditions are. Orientals are notorious for this. Many of them are annual or biannual in my garden. Try Orienpents and LA. Most of them are very vigorous and return year after year.

Orientals are pickier about growing conditions. I have clay soil (Chicago area), and it seems like they think my drainage is not good enough. Yet, Orientpets for me, do gangbusters. In my opinion, they have all the beauty of the orientals.

My lilies are doing the same thing. We had a VERY wet spring, and I wonder if they didn't like that.

IMHO orientals are the prima donnas of the lily world. Personally I no longer waste my time trying to change my growing conditions to meet their needs, especially since there are so many lilies out there that do well without pampering.

I am with hostaholic there.
I no longer buy Orientals. Why waste time and money on picky plants when there are so many more amenable ones out there to choose from?
I do love Trumpets and Orientpets. I have also gradually added species. I also have orange tiger lilies all over my garden.

Thanks everyone! I feel somewhat better. As some dwindle, I'll replace with non-orientals! Right now, I'm loving the asiatics. They are beautiful!

Do Orienpents and Asiatics smell as nice as the Orientals? I love stargazers but if they ARE GOING TO BE MORE WORK THAN THEY ARE WORTH i WOULD RATHER FIND OTHERS THAT WILL be less time consuming(sorry for the caps) I really don't have the amount of time to put into picky plants or the space to HOPE they do well.

Asiatics are not fragrant, alyciaadamo. Orientpets and trumpets are very fragrant.
Trumpets are usually very tall. They tower over me in the garden ....6 - 7 ft. usually when fully grown.

My most favorites are Regale and Regale Album.
These are Regale Album' and 'Regale' next to each other:
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This is âÂÂRegale AlbumâÂÂ:
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This is âÂÂSilk RoadâÂÂ:
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This is a NOID that my neighbor gave me many years ago:

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This is an Asiatic, another gift from my neighbor. Could be âÂÂKing PeteâÂÂ:
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This is another Asiatic. Might be âÂÂBuff PixieâÂÂ:
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This is the easiest lily to grow:
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These are beautiful especially Silk Road, the yellow one and Buff Pixie. The trumpets probably won't grow that tall for me in my zone. If they do that's fine but it's fine if they don't. Now I just have to find them, any good place to get them online.

Check out The Lily Garden, one of my favorite lily sources.