threegardeners said:
5 - 6 years, eh? ok...so I won't shoot my DH then 
Although, normally what happens is the bulb sorta peters out over a couple years, or it dies pretty abruptly during the summer and there is no bulb to dig out! Don't be too surprised if it shows up next year. With a tiny lily like that, someone could have weeded the top out accidentally (we've all done that at least once), a rabbit ate the yummy sprout, or maybe it just didn't bloom, and since no one knows exactly where it was planted, you just didn't notice it
The other possibility is the "skip a year" syndrome, especially known with martagon lilies. People call it sulking, where the bulb just decides it is not going to sprout above ground for a season (maybe even two), and comes up happy as can be the next year. Really, what happens is the bulb doesn't have the root structure to support the growth it has preprogrammed for that year. So rather than try to produce a poor quality plant and flower, it just concentrated on roots for a great display the following year. There are other reasons for sulking, but this is by far the most common.
