After seeing so many of Cindy Dyer’s spectacular photographs of flowers taken at Green Spring Gardens, I headed over there one August morning. Green Spring Gardens is a public garden in Alexandria, Virginia run by the Fairfax County Park Authority.

What I discovered was a wonderful set of gardens – with organized flower beds, plants tucked under trees, trails through the woods with wildflowers identified and so much more. Clearly Green Spring Gardens is going to be a place I return to on a pretty regular basis.

Some of the most spectacular flowers I photographed that morning were a couple types of lilies that I had never seen before.

The first was a lily that grows on a stalk, without very many surrounding leaves. There are several flowers at the top of each stalk. The blossoms can be found in various shades of pinks and purples.

I finally found a sign telling me what type of flower they were – Lycoris Squamigera. The common names for these flowers are surprise lily, magic lily or resurrection lily.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Since photographing the surprise lilies at Green Spring Gardens – I’ve seen them growing in several gardens in my neighborhood.

The second type of lily I discovered at Green Spring Gardens was a variety of the pineapple lily. The column of petite flowers was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I had no idea what it was – fortunately a few of my online friends were able to identify it for me.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

I also photographed a few other flowers at Green Spring Gardens – I’ll post them to the blog in another post soon.

Green Spring Gardens is open from dawn to dusk seven days a week. There is no fee charged for visiting the gardens. I had no problems photographing with tripod at Green Spring Gardens.