The History of Easter Lilies
- Easter takes place on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21 (the vernal equinox). The holiday, which Christians have been celebrating for about 2,000 years, celebrates Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
Easter lilies are symbols of the resurrection partly because they emerge from the earth after being underground for a long time---more than 1,000 days. These bulbs later transform into beautiful, lively plants. They also symbolize the purity and hope that the holiday represents. - In the 1880s, Bermuda grew and exported many Easter lily bulbs, according to Aggie Horticulture. Easter lilies are native to Japan, and from around 1900 to 1941, most bulbs in the United States came from there. But that changed when World War II began.
An American and former World War I soldier, Louis Houghton, had taken lily bulbs to Oregon in 1919 and had distributed them to others. After the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan in 1941, lily bulb supply from Japan discontinued. - The Easter lily bulbs in the U.S. at the time thus became highly valuable and earned the nickname of White Gold. Many people saw the opportunity and got involved in cultivating Easter lily bulbs in the U.S. There were about 1,200 bulb growers along the Pacific coast by 1945, from Vancouver, Canada to Long Beach, California, according to http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/lily/lily.html.
However, over the years, the number of growers decreased significantly, partly because of the challenge involved in successfully growing the bulbs. - According to http://easterlily.org/History.shtm, only 10 farms in a narrow coastal region at the California-Oregon border came to produce more than 95 percent of all bulbs for the potted Easter lily market. This area, dubbed the Easter lily capital of the world, discovered such success with the bulbs because of its superior combination of soil, climate and rainfall.
The Easter lily industry developed a process whereby farmers harvested bulbs in the fall, then shipped them to greenhouses in the Midwest and in California, where growers could plant and care for them until the lilies were mature. - There are numerous Biblical and historic connections to the Easter lily. For example, Matthew 6 of the Bible refers to the beauty of lilies in a passage talking about God's care for people. Other Bible references to lilies include I Kings, 2 Chronicles, Psalms and Song of Solomon.
Biblical scholars also believe that lilies grew in the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas betrayed Jesus, according to http://www.holidays.net/easter/easterlily.htm. Religious paintings depict Mary, Jesus' mother, receiving white lilies from the angel Gabriel.
