Surprise pink lilies

One of the delights of having such an established but somewhat neglected garden is that it often rewards with surprises. During our first few years at Froggarts Cottage we found many plants and flowers emerging from the undergrowth that we hadn't seen before.

This morning I was walking past our shrubbery patch in the front and spotted what looked like a floppy pink agapanthus peeping out from under the pieris.  I remembered seeing a patch of them in the front garden of a cottage in Dorset where Mum used to live. They provided a striking show every autumn.

Anyway I Googled "pink agapanthus" - and yes, they do exist as well as the usual blue, but I could see that wasn't what we had.  But one search result answered the very question I was asking - "Pink agapanthus??" This was an interesting site called Planters Corner run by Malcolm Hockman.

Nerine Bowdenii

Here is an image from his website and is just like what we have. Malcolm explained they are Nerine Bowdenii and are from South Africa. They are also called Bowden Cornish lilies.