Lycoris squamigera--with that second "i." By the way, Talina, I found your webpage because of looking for pictures of the actual bulb (not just flowers from bulbs).

Like I wrote above, all my Lycoris leaves are dying away now--some have totally disappeared--and I'm going to dig up a few clumps and replant them in a few hours. I dug up a couple clumps a week ago and got 14 bulbs, most of them full size (although the leaves were very much shaded in their last weeks by the low-branching tree they were under). Lycoris bulbs reproduce underground about as well as any bulbs, so you can harvest clumps every few years for dividing and spreading around. Or leave them be, and they become very bushy and still send up lots and lots of flower stems--they don't seem to resent "self-crowding" like tulips and many other bulbs.

Ideally, you replant them as quickly as possible after digging up--don't save them until fall like tulips and daffodils--because you need these roots to stay fresh for the blooming period. (Tulips and daffodils grow new roots in the fall and winter for spring blooming.) Maybe you got poor or no blooming last summer, Talina, because the roots dried out. Or maybe you posted too early and were soon surprised!

Lycoris is a great plant in "both" its stages. The leaves are the thickest and bushiest non-evergreen thing in the whole yard in the early spring. As they grow longer and thicker, they make a nice green backdrop for the other plants' leaves and blossoms in front of them. Then of course, there are the great flowers in late summer, when they're probably the most colorful things in the whole yard (not counting green things!).

For perhaps maximum visual effect from different sides, I tend to plant Lycoris in streaks 2-3 bulbs wide by 8 or more long. I like the streaks in arcs, curving, so the planting looks thick from other angles besides straight perpendicular. As other websites will tell you, it's best to have them behind some other summer plants so the stems don't look so naked. You do want them where you can step in and smell them, though!

I hope you've been enjoying your friend's gifts, Talina!

Resurrection lilies, surprise lilies, naked ladies: Lycoris squamagera. You all posted in 2010, so I guess you've found out by now. Leaves come up early in spring and are melting away now (late May, early June). The first time I had them at a house I was newly renting, I watered them again and again, trying to make the leaves green back up! And then in August--boing! The flower stalks pop up practically overnight, and if you hadn't been watching your yard every day, all of a sudden there are all these pink, lily-type flowers that have come out of nowhere!

I have some of these in my yard. They are called "surprise lillys," but I have no clue about their taxonomy. The greenery comes up in early spring, looking like daffodils, but it never flowers (seemingly) and the greens die off; but then in early August, a single firm green spike comes up where the greenery had been, and the spike sprouts 3-6 pink lilly0like booms. Very cool.

absolutely no clue.....