The lively chess-piece from Alice in Wonderland?

The intentionally not-lively Victorian monarch?
The too-lively and so now-dead drag star?

Of course not. We're dealing with classics in this blog, not these human ephemerals. I mean, therefore, the 'White Queen' crinum lily. It's a hybrid, one of Luther Burbank's lovliest. Crinums are the hostas of Florida; no thrill in having another one anywhere down there. But in New England, a crinum growing in-ground is a shock. A pleasant shock, a frisson, but a shock even so.
I'm not ready to risk my pair of White Queens, nicely in bud in the beds on either side of the pathway out from the back door into the garden. So my Queens are in five-gallon nursery pots sunk into the soil just for the Summer.

Here's what those impressive buds become: swooning pendant white bells. Royalty indeed.
You can get yours where I got this picture: PlantDelights.com.
As you'd conclude from their popularity in Florida, crinums love stinking Summer swelter, and don't much care about what soil they grow in as long as it's well-drained. I keep most of mine in pots year-round, and they hang out in a cool greenhouse (50 degrees tops at night) from October through May. Some crinums are hardy in-ground, easy as pie, up into Virginia. And with a little more work, some are even hardy up here in Rhode Island. Stay tuned for those posts.