"In midsummer, when heat and drought have drained all color from leaf and blossom - in spite of all of the city water that is poured on them - the surprise lily rises mysteriously from the ground. One day there is nothing, and the next there is a tall, pale stem that grows to about three feet and then produces, at the top, a circle of flowers of the most luminous and delicate pink. The surprise lily is not really a lily. It is a lycoris, as lovely as the nymph it was named for, and belongs to the amaryllis family."
Elizabeth Lawrence
August 18, 1957
The latest Lycoris to bloom
Fifty three years later, almost to the day, the lycoris are here again. The garden has been showing different species the last two weeks, and the one pictured above is the latest to emerge. Truly a surprise in such hot, dry weather we are having right now.
See you soon in the garden,
Katie Mullen