Surprise!

Surprise! Every year I forget about these Surprise Lilies.

Every spring, the first green foliage to emerge from the earth on my property is the Surprise Lily, many of which were growing here when we moved to our property in 2008. Lycoris squamigera is the scientific name for this bulb, which has numerous common names: Surprise lily and "naked ladies" (due to the lack of foliage covering their stems) are the names I've heard around here, but it's also known as spider lily, magic lily, resurrection lily, August lily, pink flamingo flower and hurricane lily, among other common names.

But by any name, they are a beautiful flower with an interesting growth habit: As I mentioned, the foliage is the earliest to emerge from the ground each spring, in early March -- their green leaves truly a sight for winter eyes.

This photo from early March a few years ago shows the Surprise lily foliage poking out of the ground.
I love spring!

By the end of March, the long, strappy leaves can be more than a foot in length. Sometimes these leaves annoy me if they flop all over, so I've been known to trim them down by one-third to one-half. This doesn't seem to hurt the flowering (but if you removed all the foliage, the bulb would probably not store enough energy to flower later).

The strappy leaves in late March.

After six weeks or so, the leaves turn yellow and eventually shrivel up and disappear. "How disappointing!" one might think. All those annoying leaves and then nothing. But by this point, so much else is happening in the garden that the lilies are forgotten, lost in the mists of garden time. Tulips bloom, followed by peonies, irises, roses, delphiniums, Asiatic lilies, coneflowers, shasta daisies, phlox, Oriental lilies and of course, the numerous glories of summer annual flowers. Each has its moment, like the ages of man.

But as late summer brings us back to school, suddenly, out of a bare spot where nothing visible existed before, appears this:

Hey, that wasn't there yesterday.
Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about those!

Just when the sunflowers and zinnias and cosmos are looking great and the vegetable garden is yielding its full bounty, up pops a tall shoot, overnight! And the next day, it flowers.

They manage to take me by surprise every year, although their beauty
should be unforgettable.

With peony foliage behind, and four o'clocks and roses in the background.

Lovely and fresh, just what is needed in August.

I greatly enjoy my surprise each year when they bloom again. I'm so glad they were here when we bought this property, and I highly recommend them to you as a fun flower -- they do well in partial shade and full sun, are virtually maintenance-free, and they multiply, so you can dig them up and divide them to have more every five years or so, but only if you want to. But who wouldn't want more of these beautiful lilies?

Thanks for reading! -Beth