LILIES OF THE FIELD SYMBOLIC EASTER FLOWER BLOOMS APLENTY.

Byline: Grace Lee Staff Writer

VENTURA - Tens of thousands of Easter lilies, many of them nurtured by Ventura County growers, will be crowding florists' shelves and church altars this weekend in an annual explosion of spring.

``It's filling up the store right now,'' Robert Donegan, sales manager of Mr. B's Flowers in Canoga Park, said of the blooms' rich fragrance. ``Those flowers, when you get a lot of them together, are overwhelmingly sweet.''

One of the nation's largest growers of Easter lilies is Oxnard-based Milgro, which expects to have sold more than 250,000 lilies by Sunday.

``Easter is one of our big holidays,'' said Milgro sales director Lorin Maygren. ``(Lilies) fit well with the Easter season because they have connotations biblically and historically.''

Traditionally for many churches, Easter lilies symbolize resurrection and new life.

Statewide, both cut and potted Easter lilies account for about $50 million in wholesale sales.

California grows 69 percent of the commercial flowers produced in the United States, with Ventura County ranking fifth in the state in cut-flower production.

The production value of cut flowers in Ventura County in 2001 totaled $51.8 million. Lilies and irises account for about $13.3 million of that, said Alan Laird, the county's deputy agricultural commissioner.

One of the advantages of growing Easter lilies, native to southern Japan and Taiwan, is the relative ease, said Roberto Ayala, the owner of Las Brisas Nursery in Oxnard.

``You just plant the bulb, and after that, water it. You don't have to use much pesticides or herbicides. Just plant it and pack it,'' he said.

Ayala, who hopes to sell about 30,000 potted plants this year, usually starts planting the bulbs in December, depending on when Easter falls. Wholesale, the plants sell for about $4, he said. Susan Kim, owner of Santa Rosa Valley Nursery in Camarillo, grows about 1,000 potted lilies, but said the effort doesn't always pay off.

Unlike in Korea or Japan, where Easter lilies sell well all year around, ``Americans don't like to buy them for their homes'' other than at Easter time, she said.

She continues growing them, she said, simply to supply several churches in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley that rely on the nursery.

At Glasshouse Nursery in Oxnard, an employee bemoaned the lilies' short- lived popularity. She said she hoped the nursery would sell all 60 of its potted lilies because ``I can't give them away after Easter.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) David Kim, manager of Santa Rosa Valley Nursery in Camarillo, checks his dwindling stock of Easter lilies.

(2) David Kim, manager of Santa Rosa Valley Nursery, hopes his stock holds out until Easter.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer