Before I decided to dig up these plants, I knew I needed to a little research into the land they were growing on. I didn’t want to dig up somebody’s bed of flowers without permission. As I suspected, they land was a tract owned by the DOT for the widening road. I don’t think the DOT really cares about them or the fact that I dug a few up. Sure enough, within a week or so the entire bed of flowers had been bulldozed over and lost to history. The bucket of starts sat in that bucket all spring waiting for a new permanent home.
The permanent home the lilies were looking for, is my in my large garden bed. At the time when they were collected, we were in the process of closing on our first home. I planted the lilies in the garden bed, and to my surprise, they bloomed! A few tall, orange trumpets sprang up out of the rescued clump. The lilies are nothing exciting. They are just the standard, old-fashioned orange lily. In fact, our house came with a whole bed of those big old orange lilies.
Despite their seemingly unexciting variety, the lilies are special. They are my first ‘salvage’ and their original home is now partially street, sidewalk, and an extended parking lot. It also gave me an excuse to look up who may have planted them. What was this tract of land before it was DOT? What is it’s history? It turns out, it has kind of a nice little history, and one that makes me happy to have the lilies from that land.
Follow this link to the my post about the land, and just why they are called the “Elvira Ditch Lilies…
Grow Your Roots 