Lilies

About five years ago, I traded a friend a large soda-fired porcelain pear for some flowers. He was living out in the country and said he had access to an abundance of wild heirloom day lilies. He came over one afternoon, dug some holes in the ledge along our driveway, and put in about eight leafy plants, all to my brown-thumbed awe.

The lilies have gradually filled in the empty spaces, and the entire ledge is now bursting at the seams with their green foliage and (as of yesterday) bright orange blossoms. Last summer the plants apparently decided they needed even more room: we're finding lilies in assorted random places this year--along the front stoop, in the weeds on the west side of the house, amidst the tiny violets in the back yard--the fiery southern cousins of Miss Rumphius's purple, blue, and rose-colored lupines.