Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

A whole row of surprise lilies popped up in the Cottage Garden 2 weeks ago, and then this lone one appeared last week in another part of the same garden. I personally like to be naughty and call them Naked Ladies, but I usually get strange looks when I do so, especially by the folks who favor the nickname Resurrection Lily. Skye would probably dip into the Latin and call them Lycoris squamigera, from the family Amaryllidaceae.

All of these summer bulbs were real surprises, as they are bulbs I rescued from an old farmplace nearby that was about to be bulldozed to build yet another subdivision with endless front yards perfectly mowed, fertilized, watered, and poisoned (with herbicide – we wouldn’t want any of the WRONG grasses in our lawns!). And, yes, I called and got permission first. The thing was, when I dug the bulbs, I thought they were spider lilies. Imagine my surprise when all these pretty flowers popped up the last two weeks of July and were PINK!

By the way, I've read that these are also called Spider lilies by some folks, but we differentiate between the pink summer-blooming Naked Lady and the (usually) red fall-blooming Spider Lily.