First, let me show you a couple shots of what the tree lilies looked like in 2010. This year wasn't the best year they'd ever had thanks to the deer coming over for a midnight snack. I used to like deer, but that changed when I planted flowers.
Tree Lilies at a distance
Closer view of the tree lilies
Because I knew I was going to have to dig the bulbs up, I hadn't bothered to cut down the stems yet so we were able to go right to the tree lilies instead of digging around the general area. Even knowing how lilies can spread, I was still surprised by what I found. There were roots going everywhere! At first, we thought the little roots were from weeds or the grass or something. It wasn't until we pulled the bulbs out that we realized those flowers had thicker roots below and many, many, many thinner roots above the bulb. That was a huge shock. But then I pulled them out of the ground and found monster bulbs.
A few of the bulbs that were pulled
Those are five of the bulbs. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say five bunches of bulbs. Look at the monster among monsters on the left. It left me stunned. Out of the eight original bulbs planted, I ended up with about 25 bulbs after three years in the ground. There would have been more except I didn't keep the really tiny ones and there were two clusters of 2 bulbs that I was afraid to separate since they were so merged together. Like conjoined bulb twins.
Close up of the bulbs