its spider/surprise lily season again! :-)

Every year about this late summer/early autumn time, we're blessed with about a week's worth of these absolutely gorgeous bright red flowers, that literally sorta 'pop up' almost overnight 'en masse', all over town. Sometimes appearing as tidy borders along sidewalks, but much more frequently in seemingly totally random spots in people's yards, whether a single one or in bunches, also frequently found in random (sometimes huge?!) clumps in now vacant lots. These few popped up in one of my flowerbeds, where quite frankly I'm not sure I knew they even existed?!

They're commonly called 'spider lilies' or 'surprise lilies' I guess. (?) Growing perennially from bulbs, they seem to end their annual life cycle 'in a blaze' by shooting up their one single stalk with spectacular vibrant red bloom. After a week or two the flower and stalk will naturally wither away back to mostly nothingness until next spring sometime, where if not disturbed too much there will probably be a small spurt of slender green leaves which, sorta like the flowers themselves, usually don't last too long -- a few weeks or a month or so and they kinda wither away too.

And *summer* comes and goes meanwhiles, then **SURPRISE**?!! ;-)

Anyways -- hope y'all enjoy sharing this little bit of "pretty" with me?! :-) :-) :-)