very nice! i like it with the alliums- garlic chives? i always plant some bidens close to mine so the yellow & red are together when they bloom. we call them the 'horton hears a who' flowers. love love love them. nice shot!! tam

Beautiful! I recieved some bulbs from a lady in Texas as a trade in late winter this year and haven't seen any thing from them. When is the best time to plant these- in flower or when the foliage comes out?

Breathtaking! Thanks for the photo.

WOW. And I got so excited because ONE lonely spider lily bloomed in my border. Of course I wasn't expecting it and things haven't been going that well for my flowers this summer. But I think if my flower bed looked as spectacular as yours I'd just faint! Gorgeous!

the best time to plant them is in the summer, when they are completely dormant. if you move them in bloom or with leaves (which are green over the winter & through spring), you may not get another flower for a while. they're not fond of being transplanted.

we were lucky enough to discover an 80' row of them at the front of our prop wen we bought, which had been undisturbed for many yrs and had really multiplied. didn't like them all in a row like little soldiers, so when we put a fence there, we dug them up and moved them. gave a way lots, which i'd wager never even got planted (wish i'd known y'all back then!). [our next door neighbor had just as many and hated them, so he mowed them each yr til they stopped coming back- so sad]. now, spots in the fence where we missed a tiny bulb have new flourishing patches nestled in our planting beds as well as where we moved them.

if they are happy, they multiply fast. they seem to like moderately moist, even almost wet heavy soil (at least for me). so take hope, lindakimy- give it a couple yrs and you may yet have a big patch. better yet, watch for a whole passle blooming in someone's yard in the older sections of town and ask if you can have a few- they probably won't mind. as passalongs, they're awesome. and, they make great cut flowers. 3 in a tall slim vase at staggered heights can't be beat.

You said, "they seem to like moderately moist, even almost wet heavy soil"....that doesn't give me hope! I'm trying to garden in pure dry sand over here. LOL But I did have several of them at the previous place in Columbia. It was sandy but quite a lot wetter than where we are now.

What I've read online is that they do especially well when there is a dry summer followed by heavy rain about a month before they begin to bloom. Well...that's pretty much what we had, isn't it?

Uh Oh, something added to my wish list. These are gorgeous! I love how you've mixed them in your bed.

yeah, i thought you were working with sand, linda. but i have heard they do well at the beach, so maybe they're adaptable. i just know what i've seen in my yard and it isn't sandy. they call them hurrricane lilies becasue they come out of dormancy to bloom after a heavy fall rain- often associated with a hurricane passing through.

Linda, if yours were an old passalong, they are probably triploid (they have an extra set of chromosomes, which gives them extra vigor) and are more likely to like heavy clay. If you ordered them you got the diploid (normal number of chromosomes), and they like acid well-drained soil. I read this in Scott Odgen's Garden Bulbs of the South. In fact Odgen writes "Where soils are well drained and on the acid side, the commercial strains of Lycrois radiata succeed nearly as well as the old garden variety".

Here's a bit of trivia . . . Lycoris radiata has a special significance for NC gardeners. It's been documented that the first place this Lycoris was planted & bloomed outside of its native Japan was in New Bern, the colonial capital of NC.

Your display of spider lilies is spectacular! Thanks for sharing the photo.

Your garden photos are always beautiful. I like how the Lycoris looks with the butterfly bush in the background.

Those are BEAUTIFUL!!!! Now I have another plant to add to my ever-growing "must-have" list. :)

Immediately after seeing this gorgeous photo and reading Alicia's comments about triploid versus diploid, I saw a reference in one of LA Jackson's articles about Old House Gardens, specializing in heirloom bulbs. Sure enough they have the triploid so I ordered some. I'm hoping they will be OK to plant in October.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old House Gardens

I know your posting is 1 yr.+ old, but maybe you'll see my note! THANK YOU for posting that picture! I love the flower mixture! I love the gently rolling lot! I love the white fence! It is breathtaking!
( HEY! It's not For Sale, is it? ! ? ! LOL!)
I'm looking for some of these lillies, now. But I have very little to offer those who want to trade, since I've just moved into a house with a HORRIBLE lawn (which does have possibilities)! And I had to leave all my "LOVES" @ the other house! I couldn't do much until now, because I am recuperating from Head & Neck Cancer. . . & the radiation really did a number on me! And this HEAT! Thank the good Lord for a little weather UNDER 90, under 70, even!! Maybe I can get something done as the weather turns cooler! I'm into rooting a few cuttings, now with a little misting system from WalMart helping me out!
GransFun

grans, if you ever come up raleigh way i can give you some. otherwise, the best way to get them is to make note where you see them blooming in the fall (little late now, unless you recall where you saw them 2 weeks ago). then, the best time to transplant them is in the late spring/early summer after the leaves have gone dormant. they are strange- they are summer dormant, with leaves all winter, flowers in fall before the leaves emerge. they are a wonderful passalong plant, and if you find someone with lots, they'll no doubt share a few. you can buy them., but they are surprisingly expensive given how well they multiply when they're happy. they're very adaptable, and do well in anything from full sun to part shade, quite moist to quite dry, and pure red clay through loamy soil (not sure about sand, since i don't have it myself, but have heard they do well at the coast, so i'd assume sand is ok). the reason they are called hurricane lilies is it takes a heavy rain in fall to make them come up. i have a couple in my ditch that somehow distinguish the water that runs through (in wetter years) from that heavy fall rain, and bloom with the others. overall, great plants!

ok- sorry- i read back over the posts after i typed this all up and saw i said most of this earlier. well, it's down here now for conveniences' sake :)