Unexpected

My friend, Kim, gives me bulbs from her father-in-law's garden.  He must have a garden with a bunch of different bulbs.  Kim pulls out a small section, the small ones that have yet to bloom and she plants them in my garden.  This time, she gave me a small grouping and I planted them.  I saw the bulb start to grow and thought, "OH cool!!  Usually the new plants don't bloom until a year or sometimes two or three years later.  But this looks like a bloom coming for the "hidden lily" bulb."

I was excited and kept waiting for it to bloom.... but was in for a little surprise.

Hidden lilies are supposed to bloom "under" the big round leaves.

This is NOT under a leaf!

I looked closer..... these blooms have a straight thin leaf at the bottom.  It appears my friend have me two different bulbs!  So, I have a surprise lily in the garden and will wait patiently for the hidden lily to make an appearance.  I hope they both survive and come back again next year!

Growing....

If you look on the previous post, you'll see a picture of this plant from Kim.  It's the lily that is supposed to bloom under the leaves.  The shoot at the bottom has suddenly sprouted up.  I know it's not a bloom, but wow, it seems like it shot up over night!

View from my window

I love looking out of my front room window to this view:

There are oodles of butterflies flying in the garden this season, but this time, I saw this as well:

Last year, this plant did well.  It was from Sue's garden.  This year, Sue said it didn't come back from her garden.  But it did with mine and it's blooming very well!

More blooms on the tropical spider lily - Yeah!

This is a new lily that Kim gave to me - it came from her father-in-law's garden.  She said that the blooms bloom "under the leaves."  I can't wait to see it!  the leaves are huge.  There were two bulbs and I'm happy to see new leaves shooting out from the small second bulb in the ground.  I hope both survive!

Tropical Spider Lily First Bloom

I'm so excited, like a child on Christmas morning!  I love surprises :)

My friend, Kim, gave me plants from her father-in-law's garden last year.  We thought one of them was a spider lily.  It was planted in the front garden last year, no blooms.  This year, we created a lily garden along the side of the drive way and moved some of the front garden lilies into the lily garden.

I was praying the lilies would survive the transplant.  So far so good.  We thought the spider lily was the one on the left... but this morning, I woke up to a bloom on the right lily!

First thought was, "OH WOW!!  NEW BLOOM!"  I grabbed the camera and then saw it close up.. but wait... it looked like how Kim had described the spider lily... but it was on the wrong plant!  Lol.  So, I have no clue as to what that huge lily on the left will be.

Here's a close up of the spider lily - LOVE it!

Butterfly Vine

I love the passion flower vine.  Love the blooms.... Love that it attracts the butterflies... Not so keen on the fact that it's a butterfly hosts - for the caterpillars to eat.  Kim, Sue and the garden nursery guy all told me that when the caterpillars eat the passion flower vine, it's a sign that the vine is healthy... even if it looks like crap after the caterpillars get to it.  There are about 20 caterpillars on this vine!!  It was so pretty... Was...

Well, at least the rest of the garden is looking good.  Love this next picture showing a bunch of different color blooms :)