Blood lily

A clump-forming herbaceous perennial grown for its showy late-season flower heads: masses of tiny star-like flowers borne in flattened cymes 3 to 6 inches across that emerge rosy pink, deepen to rose-red, and fade to coppery-rust as they die. Gray-green, fleshy, succulent-like leaves form upright clumps to about 24 inches. Easily grown in dry-to-medium, well-drained soil in full sun, it is drought tolerant and attracts butterflies, and its foliage and dead inflorescences persist into winter for added interest.

The classic white-and-yellow garden daisy - a clump-forming herbaceous perennial bearing showy single flower heads of white ray florets around a yellow central disc from midsummer into fall. A garden hybrid bred by Luther Burbank in the 1890s near snow-covered Mt. Shasta in northern California, it grows 2 to 3 feet tall and is a mainstay of the perennial border, cottage garden, and cutting garden. Easily grown in dry-to-medium, well-drained soil in full sun, it is drought tolerant, attracts butterflies, and is resistant to deer and rabbit browsing.

Easter lily reaches most people the way almost nothing else in this catalog does: as a forced gift plant in a foil-wrapped pot, in full white trumpet in March or April, months before its real season. Left to itself in a garden Lilium longiflorum flowers in July and August, and Missouri Botanical Garden files it under the plainer name trumpet lily. Everything about the pot version is engineered - bulbs lifted in autumn from a narrow strip of the California and Oregon coast, cooled, potted, held under a temperature schedule that lands the buds on a date that moves by up to five weeks a year, and kept short with growth retardants. That is why the plant you were given is 16 to 20 inches tall and the same plant in the ground is 2 to 3 feet. The single most important sentence in this record is not horticultural. This is the species behind the veterinary literature on feline lily poisoning: every part of it, including the pollen and the water in the vase, causes acute kidney injury in cats, less than one leaf can be enough, and untreated cases die in 36 to 72 hours. It is also the lily that enters houses in quantity, which is the whole problem. If there is a cat in the house, this plant does not come in the door. Beyond that, be clear about what it is not. It is not a hardy garden bulb in the way the regal lily in this wave is - Missouri Botanical Garden rates it zone 4 to 8, which is the most generous number in circulation for a subtropical island endemic, and much US extension guidance says 5 to 8. It is not a widespread wild species either: Kew's native range is the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, southern Japan and the Philippines, and nothing else. A globally traded flower with a natural range you could drive across in a day.

A spring-flowering bulb grown for dense upright spikes of waxy, star-shaped florets in blue, purple, pink, red, or white - famous for an intense, sometimes overpowering fragrance. Plant bulbs in mid-fall for an April bloom; flower quality typically declines after the first year, so the densest spikes often need replanting every couple of seasons. Every part of the bulb is mildly toxic and the sap can cause contact dermatitis, so gloves are advised when planting.