How to Bloom in Hard Times: The Red Spider Lily

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

– from Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

I’ll never forget the first time I saw lycoris radiata, or the red spider lily. I pulled into my driveway, and where hours earlier had been nothing at all, now stood three bright, crimson flowers on tall, thin shoots, the petals bursting like fireworks right outside my door. This flower took me by surprise at its sudden appearance and its unfamiliar and intoxicating beauty. 

This first encounter was in September 2014. I was working on my master’s degree. I had just moved into a new place, a small apartment on one side of an old home that had been converted into a duplex. It had no central heating or air and I once saw a rat crawl under my house that was bigger than my cat. But, it was only $400 a month and this was all I could afford on my graduate stipend. 

I loved the old house, to tell the truth. I’ve always loved old houses and their gardens. You never know what fruits or blossoms will appear, gifts from previous tenants with loving green thumbs, wild winds, and time. 

Looking back I am nostalgic for the freedom of these days, though graduate school was a difficult time for me. I was lonely, broke, and burned out. I know now that the constant panic that gripped me throughout much of 2014 was the result of my not-yet-diagnosed OCD. Whenever my depression sneaks up on me, so do the never-ending anxious thoughts, and I become so consumed with negativity and thoughts of death that I retreat within myself. I was happy to live alone then because I didn’t have to mask anything. So, that day in 2014,  pulling up to an unexpected and radiant bouquet felt like a welcome gift, just for me. 

From that moment forward my eyes were attuned to these mesmerizing beauties. Spider lilies began to appear to me in hard times and whisper to me healing words of resilience, showing me how to bloom when it seems that everything has gone dormant.

The next time they surprised me was in 2018. I had just moved home to Georgia and I was teaching an afternoon class at a local college. The year before I had moved to Colorado to start a PhD program. Again, graduate school was very difficult for me. But, things became more complicated at this crux. My boyfriend at the time (now my husband), had just been diagnosed with cancer. I was away from my home and family for the first time and struggling to keep up with the intentional overwhelm of first-year PhD studies. The students I taught came from seven-figure families, and I had to work a second job to make ends meet. 

When I turned to program mentors for support, they said this was a “weeding out” period, essentially, and I just needed to put my head down and get through. I was also told to quit my second job,  as if I had a choice. Like the undergrads we taught, the majority of the graduate students in my program came from extremely wealthy families. I didn’t fit in, even though I did make some wonderful friends with a few students in my cohort. After the first semester, I was burned out and bursting with sadness and rage. I made up my mind to quit the program, but I would make it through the first year. I began numbing myself by drinking heavily, which greatly exacerbated my mental health issues. I made it through the end of the semester, but I didn’t write my exams, so I failed. 

So, I was back in Georgia, feeling like a failure and starting over. I was working at a restaurant again, which felt like a step back, and teaching part-time at a local college. I was afraid I’d missed my chance in academia, that I had made the wrong choice to quit. And I did miss my chance, but it turns out that is okay. 

The walk from the economy faculty parking was long, mostly uphill, and it was September in Georgia, so it was still sweltering for this 2pm class. But, as I huffed and puffed my way toward the classroom one ordinary day, there they were, lycoris radiata, to put a smile on my face and remind me of how far I had come.

Lycoris Radiata

The ability to appear so suddenly earned lycoris radiata one of its aliases, the Surprise Lily. I mostly see them called Red Spider Lily, but it also goes by the Hurricane Lily because its appearance often coincides with the first hurricane of the season, and the Resurrection Lily, because deep green foliage appears after the flower dies. I’ve also seen them called “naked ladies.” In Japan, red spider lilies are often linked with death and the afterlife, giving them the nickname the Death Lily. 

Originally from China, Korea, and Japan, you can find these flowers all over the Southern US. Their foliage dies back in summer, leaving you wondering if they’ve called it quits. Then fall comes, and up pops slender, naked stems, sporting spidery red blooms that can climb nearly two feet tall.  Plant them in full sun or partial shade, with some well-drained soil, and they’ll do their thing with very little fuss. They reproduce and will quickly fill out a garden bed. Their ability to coexist with other wild plants, often blooming after a good late summer rain, makes them perfect for a garden that embraces chaos, growth, and a little bit of wild magic.

Their wiry petals curl out like fireworks, making them unlike any other fall bloomers. They appear like a final bow, wrapping up the season with a flourish, as if to say, “Don’t forget, all of this will come back again.”

The best part about these flowers is how incredibly low maintenance they are. I dug my current bulbs from the edge of a drainage ditch right next to a culvert pipe, on a mopey and aggravated walk with my toddler. 

Maya Angelou’s words of resilience in “Still I Rise” linger with Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” in my imagination to sooth me during these times when my hardiness is tested by the demands of parenthood, work, relationships, and bids for my time, attention, and body.

There are many days I feel my bloom has faded, my fruit dropped. I am restless, but exhausted. The days are long, monotonous, and enervating, like the scorching heat of July and August that sends lycoris radiata into dormancy.

But, that is the season. It isn’t about running wild or breaking new ground, but digging in. Establishing roots and nurturing tender buds, that will one day burst into something alive and unapologetically itself.

New bulbs in the ground, I await the next life-giving surprise of the red spider lily. To me, lycoris radiata are symbols of the cycles of life, of endings and beginnings, of resilience in the face of change, of thriving in hostile environments, and the promise of rebirth that is always churning beneath the surface.

This bold bloom, with its thin, fiery petals and deep crimson hue, doesn’t just stop you in your tracks; it whispers of cycles, endings, and rebirth; remembering, and the wistfulness that comes with quietly witnessing one season pass into another.