Naked ladies

It'll be interesting to see what sort of pervy traffic Google sends my way for that post title. But I'm not talking about REAL naked ladies--I'm talking about flowers.

I have this little corner of my yard that is kind of the bulb graveyard. During the winter I love to buy forced bulbs such as tulips, daffodils, etc., and let them bloom in my windowsill. When they've done their thing, I stick them out on the back porch to finish fading away, and then eventually Fred digs a hole and sticks them in that flowerbed. It's always a mystery as to what will come back up!

Last spring I had a huge mess of foliage that I chalked up to be underperforming hyacinths--lots of greenery but no flowers:



This past week, I had some mysterious flowers that I don't remember ever seeing before come snaking up out of the ground. No leaves at all, just long stems and pod-like buds that turned out to be some sort of lily:



I found out the other day that these mysterious beauties are called "naked ladies" or "surprise lilies" (which is accurate but not as kinky sounding). According to the Louisville paper:

The surprise lily is the more common in our area, and it is fun to own and operate. Its green foliage boils up in spring, then disappears. Just when you've forgotten about them, up pop the rose-pink, amaryllislike blooms on leggy, 2-foot stems.

Yep, that's pretty much what happened here!