The Spider Lily Story

   The Hermitage 
at Spider Lily Falls
 Where the world melts away!
   The Spider Lily Story

 I was first introduced to the Spider Lily in 1989 by some friends of my ex-wife & friend Cindy. They have a place on a creek in South Carolina just north of Augusta that has a stand of Spider Lilies (the location will have to remain a secret). It was and is a large stand that measures roughly 25 yards wide by 300 yards long of solid lilies like a large carpet of green and white, a beautiful stand that will take your breath away. The friends held a Spider Lily Festival there one year at the peak of the blooms and that started my love affair with them. Every year after that I planned a pilgrimage to see the lilies like some people do for the changing of the leaves in North Georgia. Some years we made it at peak time, some years we didn't. Then the changes we sometimes never plan for but somehow overtake us did so in my life.  Those changes physically  took me away from Augusta and also took me away from the liliess, but I have kept in touch over the years with Cindy and our Friends.   

 Fast forward nine years to 1998 and to my finding this place on the Auchumpkee Creek and building the house with a design in mind for a Bed and Breakfast. A couple of years after we started building, Bill of the Friends that owned the Creek property where the spider lilies are, called and told me a horrifying story.  One of the partners in this property had backed a tractor down to the creek and scooped out a large section of spider lilies and put them in a small water pond and the plants were in danger. Did I want to help save them and possibly use them to seed my creek? So I said, "Of course!" and that started the reintroduction of Spider Lily's to the Au-chump-kee Creek. 

A few years later (2005) my friend Bill called me again and told me about a survey that the Biology Department of Augusta College was doing of local spider lily stands on the Savannah River and the surrounding watersheds. The biologists had done a survey of his stand of lilies and said it was one of the healthiest stands of lilies in the state. Because of good weather that year it had been a bumper crop of blooms, therefore a bumper crop of seedlings that year (the seed pods come from the blooms, so when you see spider lilies blooming DON"T pick the blooms) that year and there had not been very much high water (flooding), so there was a large amount of seedlings still in the water around the plants. (they are usually swept down stream and lost because the habitat for them is so specialized). Did I want some? Well I'm sure you know what my answer was. That first planting of seedlings in the creek was a great success. Since that first planting I have learned a lot more about the plant and its lighting needs, placement in current and propagation. I have been going back each year at the same time in late summer to look for seedlings that form from the blooms. 

At present we have approximately 150 plants that have become well established and we look forward to continuing in helping the threatened Rocky Shoal Spider Lily variety expand its locations so future generations will still be able to enjoy this truly amazing plant.

 Lenn Dukes 
                 
     
Spider Lily's in Mid-Season Bloom
160 acres of Spider Lily's at Langford Shoals, South Carolina, one of the largest stands in the southeast, under a full moon.
Spider Lily's at Langford Shoals, South Carolina. 
Spider Lilies at Dusk on Hargraves Shoals, Alabama   
The First Bloom of  Spider
 Lily's Re-established at The Hermitage 2008
The Spider Lilies at Yellow Jacket Shoals, Flint River, Georgia
Photo to Come
A Bed and Breakfast Retreat
 1547 Old Minor Road, Culloden, Ga 31016.  Reservations 478.955.2721
The North of Augusta Stand of Spider Lilies