toad lily

I have my grandmother to thank for this one. I bought three little toad lily plants in early spring for an area of the yard that I intended to turn over from grass into a shade garden this summer, which just never happened. When my mom and grandmother visited in late May, the lilies were just tiny little seedlings with no buds. My grandmother urged me to plant them in a temporary spot before I left for my trip to New England in June (see here and here), or else, she warned, they might not have survived in the 3 inch pots for very long (they'd already been sitting in their pots for about a month, poor dears).

This one somehow survived the rabbits. 

I was so excited to see the lilies start to form buds in late July. Then, when I got back from a trip to Cape Cod in early August (I owe a post on that...), it looked as though someone had come into my yard and snipped all the buds off. Damned rabbits!! Their cuteness no longer negates my ill feelings for them - they've nearly killed two bushes and a dogwood tree on our property, and now, they're feasting on one of the prettiest plants in my yard.

But, for some reason they've thankfully been leaving them alone for a couple of weeks, and so this beauty had a chance to bloom. 

Good thing too, because it's re-motivated me to prepare the shady corner of our yard this fall for a shade garden in the spring, with ferns, hellebores, bleeding hearts, Solomon's Seal and yes, toad lilies.