Surprise Lilies

I know that surprise lilies, lycoris squamigera for you Latin fans,

are the blush pink lilies that rise suddenly from the earth,

one reason they are also called resurrection lilies or magic lilies.

When I was a kid, they were known as naked ladies;

I guess because they spring up sans leaves.

I found this photo on the blog In my Kitchen Garden.

This 2009 farmgirlfare.com photo has rustic charm:

www.farmgirlfare.com

Lovely, but these are not the surprise lilies I am talking about today.

I'm talking about orange daylilies

 that I dug up from my parents' front yard two summers ago. 

The orange field daylilies alway bloomed along the roadsides 

in Missouri where my parents lived. 

And there were many times

 that I would stop the car on my way to see my mom 

and pick her a bouquet of orange daylilies.

And one of my favorite memories of my dad

 is how he would pick huge bouquets of daylilies and other wildflowers 

and come walking up the lane to our house

while holding the bouquet behind his back so he could surprise my mom.

Here's an image of a daylily-wildflower bouquet

from canoecorner.blogspot.com by  Margurerite, no last name:

canoecorner.blogspot.com 

The two daylilies I dug from my parents' house

were the opposite of  the magic lilies, for the orange lilies

 had leaves but no stems or flowers.

I figured they would probably never bloom.

And then yesterday, I rounded the corner of my house 

and there was the most perfect orange daylily blossom I've ever seen.

Here's the photo I took with my phone:

It's only one flower stalk, but it's a start. 

This spring I noticed the original daylilies from my parents 

have formed a few "new" plants.

Where there is life, there is hope.

And sometimes a surprise of daylilies.

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