About us

Welcome to The Lily Garden!

Our goal is to provide you with beautiful, reliable, garden lilies, Crocosmias and herbaceous peonies!  We are delighted to share our new selection with you this year, full of the best garden lilies available anywhere, with plants selected to please every palate!

Here you will find lily and Crocosmia varieties unavailable anywhere else, our own Columbia-Platte hybrids that span the spectrum of flower size, color, plant height, shape and form. (Note: LG indicates our own Columbia-Platte Lilies introductions, born and bred on our farm.) All our offerings have been tested and selected specifically with the garden in mind–our lilies are strong, persistent, disease-resistant, and above all, beautiful! And because we grow them all ourselves, here on our own farm, we absolutely guarantee every bulb to grow and bloom. We photograph all our lilies in the field to show you how they really look.

Judtih continues to make hundreds of crosses each summer, using and inventing methods to create new types of lilies. In 2016 Niels took over the day to day activities at ‘The Lily Garden’ after managing Judiths field crops for a number of years prior to that. This way Judith can solely focus on hybridizing and enjoy a well deserved slower pass of life after decades of hard work.

On our website you’ll find 4 main groups of Lilies

Martagon lilies bloom the ealiest. However, they sometimes need a year to establish themselves in order to bloom. But after the 2nd season you can expect them to bloom for many years. Then come the Asiatics , beginning in early June with a vast array of colors; the Trumpets and Aurelians come next, perfuming the garden in July; “Orienpet” hybrids blossom through July and into August; and the Orientals provide a grand finale in late July and August with their large, fragrant blooms. 

Hardy lily bulbs will return year after year with only the simplest maintenance. (See Growing Lilies for more information) Each year you can expect more and more flowers to grace your garden with color, longevity, fragrance, and beautiful form. We hope you enjoy looking through our own lily garden, and that you will choose to add our fine plants to your garden, as well. Thank you for visiting our site and Enjoy the lilies!

Judith Freeman and Niels van Noort

Judith began hybridizing lilies more than 40 years ago,

and created this business in 1979. In the beginning, we did everything by hand, even the planting, digging, and watering. As we’ve grown and moved our fields and bulbs over the years, we’ve experienced all sorts of weather and growing conditions, providing real life testing of the endurance, hardiness and garden reliability of the lily hybrids we’ve been developing in all that time. We’re still growing several of the varieties that graced our fields in 1979! ‘Brushstroke,’ ‘Doeskin,’ ‘Tiger Babies,’ ,’ ‘Red Velvet,’ ‘White Butterflies,’ ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘White Henryi’ still thrive in our lily garden. 

Today her Orienpet hybrids are the most popular, including ‘Silk Road,’ ‘Caravan,’ ‘Scheherazade,’ ‘Pizzazz,’ ‘Anastasia’ and ‘Luminaries,’ and hybrids like ‘Red Velvet,’ ‘Midnight,’ ‘Black Beauty,’ ‘Ariadne’ continue to be well-loved garden favorites that flourish worldwide.