Georgia Magazine - February 2023 - 25

Above left: Dimpled trout lilies in full bloom
carpet the ground at Wolf Creek Trout
Lily Preserve. Above: Eagle Scout Tyler
Akridge (center) and other
members of Whigham Boy Scout Troop
383 built a sign for the entrance to the
preserve off Wolf Creek Road. Inset:
Trout lilies' mottled leaves die back
every year after the blooming season.
Georgia Department of Natural
Resources. He thought, like I did, that
the number of plants was very unusual. "
Timber on the property where the lilies
guess about the peak time of blooming
each year. "
Last February, more than a
grew had been selectively harvested over the
years, and the landowner, Cairo-based Flint River
Timber Co., was planning to sell the acreage.
Dan Miller, who owns a native plant nursery in
Tallahassee, Fla., and Gil Nelson, a member of the Magnolia
Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society in Tallahassee,
joined with botanists from Georgia in an effort to save the land.
In 2007, they applied to the Georgia Land Conservation
Program for a grant that would provide half of the funds
required to purchase the property, provided they could raise
the other half. The property then would be deeded to Grady
County to create a preserve.
The owners agreed to sell the property for what they
had paid for it, taking no profit. However, as the deadline
approached to acquire the matching conservation grant, the
campaign was still short $45,000. At the last moment, an
anonymous donor from North Georgia mailed in a check for
that amount to secure the grant. The lilies were saved in the
nick of time, and the preserve was opened to the public in 2009.
An ephemeral display
The lilies' bloom season depends on the weather and may
last three or four weeks, usually ending in late February.
" The lilies don't even show their foliage until January, " says
Margaret Tyson, a Cairo native and member of the preserve's
volunteer advisory board. " We monitor them and make our best
thousand visitors came to see the spectacle.
This year, the preserve plans to extend public
access into March so that guests can observe other
wildflowers-such as bloodroot, Jack in the pulpit and two
species of orchids-that also thrive on the property but bloom
after the lilies disappear.
Visitors can scan QR codes on signs installed along the
paths to learn about medicinal plants and other topics related
to the local flora. Boy Scout Troop 383 from Whigham has
completed several Eagle Scout projects, including a roadside
marker for the preserve, an informational kiosk and benches
placed along the Wolf Creek Trail that runs through the
preserve.
Check the preserve's Facebook page before you visit for
daily updates on the lilies' progress. The preserve is generally
open from sunrise to sunset every day, but only during the peak
blooming weeks.
" Pick a day without clouds, and take your sweetheart, "
Tyson says. " It will be a Valentine experience you will never
forget. "
Georgann Eubanks is a freelance writer living in Carrboro,
N.C., and the author of " Saving the Wild South " (University of
North Carolina Press, 2021).
When you go
Wolf Creek Trout Lily Preserve, Wolf Creek Road, Whigham.
(229) 378-7610. fb.com/wolfcreektroutlilypreserve.
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Georgia Magazine - February 2023

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