The summer surprise lily season kicks into full gear around July 15, so it’s time to share those who graced us with their presence from July 15-July 31. Because we grow over 1,100 cultivars of lycoris, we have an abundance in flower every day from early July until early October. Flowering time for each stem last about 1 week, depending on the weather, but once a clump offsets into many bulbs, the floral show of each clump may continue for 2-3 weeks. To determine which lycoris to introduce and name, we look at uniqueness, garden value, and their flowering window. This year, we’ve flowered 116 clones in the window that ended July 31. Below are a few from this years pictures.
There are three spring-foliaged species in this early window; Lycoris sprengeri, Lycoris longituba, and Lycoris sanguinea. The last species almost never flowers here, due to our lack of adequate winter chill hours. These should all be winter hardy in Zones 4/5. Lycoris sanguinea and Lycoris longituba are the slowest to multiply, hence it make take us 10-20 years to make a selected clone available once. Lycoris sprengeri multiplies about double the rate of the other two.
Lycoris longituba most commonly comes in white, although it does also occur in yellow, pink, and rarely orange.
Lycoris longituba ‘Butterfingers’ is our darkest yellow-flowered selection.
Lycoris sprengeri ‘Pink Floyd’ is our first named selection of this excellent species. It’s also one of the earliest, always opening in the late July window. All Lycoris sprengeri has the same combination of pink and blue coloration, only in different amounts.
Lycoris insularis is a new name, recently published in China, for a disjunct population of Lycoris sprengeri-looking plants. We have not yet adopted it as valid or invalid. In appearance, it more closely resembles Lycoris x rosea, which is a naturally-occurring hybrid between Lycoris sprengeri and Lycoris radiata. There are two key factors in determining where it belongs; flowering time, perianth tube length, and leaf emergence time. We find that it takes at least two years of establishment to determine the true leaf emergence times, so our plants aren’t mature enough, yet. The flowering time, and perianth tube length, however, fits perfectly into Lycoris sprengeri. So, despite it looking a bit like a hybrid, it doesn’t appear to be so. The question remains if it is distinctive enough to warrant species status, as opposed to being simply a subspecies of Lycoris sprengeri. I’d currently have to lean toward it being a subspecies.
Below is a comparison of the flowers of Lycoris sprengeri, Lycoris insularis, and Lycoris x rosea (sprengeri x radiata)
There are also several spring-leaf hybrids that flower in the July window. Those include Lycoris x incarnata (sprengeri x longituba) and Lycoris x jinzheniae (chinensis x sprengeri). While we can’t flower the orange-flowered Lycoris sanguinea, the hybrids with Lycoris sprengeri, which we call, Lycoris x sprenguinea, flower well, and show the orange color. These hybrids are typically slightly faster to offset than the straight species.
The old passalong clone, Lycoris x squamigera is probably the same cross as Lycoris x incarnata
Lycoris x sprenguinea ‘Momozono’
There are only three (possibly four) fall-leaf species, Lycoris aurea, Lycoris traubii, and Lycoris radiata. We only have one Lycoris radiata that flowers in the July window, a clone we named Lycoris radiata ‘Fourth of July’. There are, however a number of fall-foliage hybrids that flower in the July window. Those are forms of Lycoris x rosea (radiata x sprengeri) and Lycoris x straminea (radiata x chinensis). Only a few clones of Lycoris x rosea flower in July. The vast majority are August blooming clones.
I’ve not grown lycoris before; these photos cause me to wonder why. Lycoris springeri ‘Pink Floyd’ and l. rosea ‘Easter Bonnet’ are outstanding, but they’re all gorgeous.
We think most folks simply aren’t aware of the diversity that exists in the genus, since commercially only 2-4 cultivars are usually all that are offered. Also many bulb suppliers sell dried bulbs, which often don’t flower for years. This is why we opted for sellilg potted bulbs, which are obviously more expensive, but don’t suffer from the years of no flowering.