Spider Lilies

 

Spider lilies are blooming everywhere now. It seems late to me but I have no data. The lateness may be due to the fact that we had virtually no rain in September. I started to see spider lilies blooming along the road about a month ago but they have popped up everywhere now.
These long lived perennial bulbs survive at old homesites and along roads where soil has been deposited in the road building process. They do however resent a couple of treatments. They do not like to be moved and may take 2 or 3 years to recover. The other is that their folige should not be mowed till it dies back in spring. The flowers pot up when no foliage is visible and this accounts for one of their names, naked ladies. The flowers are followed by striped leaves which persist through the winter before dying off in the spring. The bulbs frequently squeeze themselves out of the ground when they become crowded. I usually just take the loose bulbs that are lying on top of the ground this time of year and plant them somewhere else.
These red flowers make a stunning attangement with fall blooming aggeratum (blue).