At this time of year we’re normally wishing for rain and cooler weather. But after the showers of the last few days, we’re now blessed with cool air and cloudy skies.

The rain gauge measured 25mm for the week; not much, but enough to seduce these stunning Belladonna Lilies into flower. They’re growing at the base of a clump of cut-back Watsonia near the front steps, in a spot I’ve never seen them before.

Their long-stemmed buds erupted earlier in the week. Overnight, it seemed, they burst into glorious bloom.

This variety is known as ‘Pink Lady’. Demurely alluring, she’s as tough as old boots. She’s a native of south-west South Africa, where she thrives in a Mediterranean climate, so she’s well suited to our dry Summers.

I’ve seen clumps of them flourishing in places where all else was destroyed by fire, and in overgrown gardens of ruined farmhouses, gracefully waving their beautiful heads.

The Belladonna Lily is not particularly fashionable; it’s even viewed by some as a weed. As well as growing in abandoned places, it’s sometimes the marker for a rental property where successive tenants have resolutely ignored the garden. Or where the resident is too old and infirm to bother with it any more.

Despite her less-than-glamorous image, this redoubtable ‘beautiful woman’ prospers where, decades ago, all else fell into ruin. Surviving neglect and flowering in the harshest conditions, she is one tough beauty.

It’s just a worry that I have no memory of planting the bulbs.