LILIES - RHS Lily Group

68
Alisdair Aird
Harris Howland writes a few notes on the recipient of the
RHS Lily Group Lyttel Cup.
HAVE BEEN GROWING LILIES now for nearly 50 years and have met many lily growers
I from all around the globe, but I have to say that Alisdair Aird is one of the most
accomplished growers of species Lilium that I have ever had the pleasure to
meet. Some of my early recollections of him are in the initial days of ‘Lilies from
China’ (Chen Yi) and Alisdair collecting some weird and wonderful material, not
always what he expected. However, he achieved great success with many of
these lilies, some of them rare and some of them new species.
Alisdair started growing lily species from bought bulbs in large pots, in a
south-facing bed-sitting room when he first moved to London after leaving
college, in 1963. The pots lived below a big bay window, growing up into the
light as they flowered, and were a huge compensation for living in a city instead
of the country.
A few years later he discovered how easy it was to grow lilies from seed. In
the early 1970s, sharing an allotment with Helena Wiesner (to whom he is now
married), he grew a long row of Lilium regale. He was (and still is) a member
of the Alpine Garden Society as well as the RHS, and gradually tried one or two
other lily species from seed from their distributions.
He joined the Lily Group after seeing the marvellous displays of lilies staged in