Tango Asiatic’ London Heart’ lily is described as a “red and black” lily. The flowers should be crimson-red with freckles, and they should have a black center.
I planted 3 of these bulbs last fall, but this summer when the flowers bloomed they didn’t quite look like the photos I’ve seen online.
The color was bright, but more of a dark orange. And there were plenty of freckles, but no black center.
I received my bulbs rather late last year. I remember trying to dig the six-inch hole in my flowerbed, but a hard freeze had already occurred.
I jumped on my shovel, and it bounced back instead of plunging into the soil. I almost fell backward. The frost had already permeated the ground by a couple of inches.
I eventually got the the bulbs planted, but then it snowed a few days later which didn’t really give the roots any time to get established.
The bulbs still handled winter and the overly-wet spring quite well, and they sent out plenty of blooms. But I’m not sure I believe that the bulbs I planted are ‘London Heart’.
This cultivar is also described as “up-facing” and my bulbs were very definitely down-facing. In fact at times I had to crouch on the ground to get a good view of the flowers.
I hope to see if there’s any change in the blooms next summer. But the newly-arrived lily leaf beetles really did a number on all of my lilies once their blooming season was over. I’m not confident that any of them will bloom again next year.
‘London Heart’ grows about 3 feet tall in full sun to part-shade. My plants thrived in part-shade. The plants bloom in late June through early July.