This weekend we went to the Cahaba Lily Festival in West Blocton:
Now, there were activities downtown for people that were there for a speaker, and I found probably seven or eight vendors one one city block downtown, but the ‘belle of the ball’ was of course the Cahaba lilies themselves – and you can go see them anytime between now and…hmmm…probably mid-June. No wait for a festival!
These are some great directions to see them.
I don’t have a super zoom lens, and we didn’t get in a canoe on the river to get closer to the lilies (wouldn’t that be fun!? maybe when the boys get bigger!) but this person got a *beautiful* shot of them:
Image courtesy lndhslf72 used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic. Thank you!
Just lovely. I had always heard that Cahaba Lilies grow only in Alabama, but they grow in Georgia too, they just call them something different.
No matter what, you have to resist the urge to transplant them. They’re protected, for good reason – but I have to say, I wonder if it wouldn’t be smart for one of the preservation groups to partner with some horticultural society (or company…) to propagate them for home gardeners – this way, there would be little reason for people to even consider the idea of harvesting them from their natural habitat. Since that isn’t happening, there’s probably a very good reason why not. I sure do enjoy seeing them in the river.
There is one in my living room though.
Okay! Not a real one! A copper one by Robert Taylor who is an artist in B’ham. I saw him a couple of weeks ago at the Pepper Place Saturday market and he’s really good about doing the art festival circuit…so if you need a copper Cahaba lily…