Oxblood lilies bloom like magic all over Texas with the first hint of fall weather after school starts.

There are a number of things we are generally guaranteed as gardeners in Texas. The summers are generally dry, and the winters are almost always moist. This particular wet-dry cycle is perfect for certain kinds of bulbs from parts of the world that mimic our “feast or famine climate.” One of the most visible and dramatic makes its presence known each year with the first hint of fall weather around the time school starts.

Oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida), also known as schoolhouse lilies, have the same growth cycle as my beloved red spider lilies (Lycoris radiata), but generally bloom about a month earlier. Both produce flowers in the late summer or fall on naked stems, grow foliage during the winter time, and go dormant during the summer.

One of our early German-Texan plantsmen, Peter Heinrich Oberwetter of Comfort and later Austin, purportedly introduced oxblood lilies from Argentina and began to propagate and distribute them around the heart of Texas.

To this day, you’ll find more oxblood lilies in the Germanic heritage areas of Central Texas than any other part of the state.

These members of the amaryllis family need winter sunshine, an extended dry period during the summer, and a soaking rain in August or September. They will grow in sand, silt, or clay and will grow in a flower bed, in groundcover, in the lawn, or in a pasture. In Garden Bulbs for the South, Scott Ogden says, “No other Southern bulb can match the fierce vigor, tenacity, and adaptability of the oxblood lily.” And though the striking blooms only last a week or two, the bulbs will outlive you, producing more and more blooms each year without ever needing to be divided, irrigated, sprayed, or fertilized.

If you don’t have a friend that will share, the Smith County Master Gardeners will have oxblood lilies at their award-winning annual Earth-Kind Bulbs to Blooms Conference and Sale to be held virtually again this year. The educational program will feature yours truly via video on the Earth-Kind bulbs in the sale.

The presentation on the heirloom, hardy, and hard-to-find bulbs will be posted on the Smith County Master Gardeners Association website, Facebook, and YouTube pages the week of Sept. 13.

The sale itself will be conducted online Sept. 27 with curbside pick-up at Pollard United Methodist Church in Tyler on Oct. 9.

(Greg Grant is the Smith County horticulturist for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. He is author of Texas Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, Heirloom Gardening in the South, and The Rose Rustlers. You can follow him on Facebook at “Greg Grant Gardens,” read his “Greg’s Ramblings” blog at arborgate.com, and read his “In Greg’s Garden” in each issue of Texas Gardener magazine (texasgardener.com). More research-based lawn and gardening information from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service can be found at aggieturf.tamu.edu and aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu.)