Changing of the guard

Saturday (15 October) marked the final day of the last blooms of rhodophiala bifida (oxblood lily), the last to appear having been a squirrel planting on the big oak motte by the old playhouse. Leaves are up everywhere; last year they went all through the winter and a good part of the summer, probably accounting for the vigor and profusion of flowers this year. In some yards, where it all began later than it did for us, flowers are still opening. Sunday (16 October) out of nowhere shot up a six-stem clump of lycoris radiata (spider lily). The stems, of course, are naked. Elsewhere in the yard the leaves are appearing and we're assuming that there'll be no flowers from those clumps, since the leaves usually arrive after the flowers do. Whether because their part of the yard is more shady than it used to be or for some other reason, these haven't been doing much blooming the past couple of years or so. Now that it's cooler we have morning glory and cypress vine flowers every day. We're still looking for hyacinth bean blossoms, though.