Yep, if you're vigilant one or two years will probably do it. Vigilant means removal at least weekly.

Theoretically.....yes :-) If you consistantly deprive a plant of any top growth - the visible green - it is unable to photosynthesize. And without photosynthesis, the plant is unable to convert nutrients, etc. into the food it needs to support it itself and it weakens and eventually dies. However, sometimes the roots/bulbs can store an incredible amount of energy and vitality and these underground organs will just keep trying to push out new growth. It is a survival instinct.

So it is not a fast process. And sometimes longer than you would expect. But if you keep at it, you will succeed.

thx all. heh. figuered it was either the aka, the slow approach or the manual labor of digging and finding the bulb. And when I have dug, not only do I find the one with the leaf, but the various bulblets. Kinda like where's waldo and there is always a surprise when I take a dig

Yes, so practically expect at least two years (because you'll let some go...probably).

Are you talking about TRUE lily bulbs? That produce a stalk? Or daylilies that have numerous strap like leaves? True lilies will die readily if you cut off the stalk a few years in a row.

Daylilies are much harder to get rid of. Especially the wild orange ones. I still find a few in a bed I thought I had cleared 15+ years ago.

Do you have a picture of the plant? I can think of a few very invasive bulbs that are said it be almost impossible to get rid of.

It's lily bulbs. I've pulled stalks, I've dug them out. Whenever I dig, I'm often finding bulblets here and there. And just when I think I got them all, the following year, shoots appear here and there.

I have a hard time with that as well :-) IMO, lilies are some of the most desirable (and easy to care for) bulbs one can have in a garden! I have a hard enough time keeping the deer away from the few I have managed to hang onto from the ravages of those 4-footed predators!

My "kill-the-bulb" issues revolve around wood hyacinths/bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica, and the common orange and exceedingly weedy form of crocosmia, aka montbretia. The deer do munch down the new growth of the wood hyacinths but not enough to them any lasting harm. They are some tough plants!!

I don't mind the blooms. I just hate the stalks when it's done and where they sprout, from the periphery , those stalks are not hidden...