Amaryllis Redux

  I'm sitting next to a small, dark wooden table with four pots on it. Three contain the bright green grassy foliage of paperwhite narcissus bulbs that bloomed a month ago. The fourth pot houses an amaryllis about to bloom.  I've grown winter bulbs for at least thirty years, but these pots are special- they reflect my new, less disposable view of the things in my world.

  One winter shortly after I graduated from college I gave paperwhites potted in mugs from a dime store as Christmas gifts to some of my friends. One of them was a recent art school grad, and several weeks later he showed me a vivid drawing of a sad, past prime narcissus.  I thought it was beautiful, but wondered why he didn't draw it at it's best.  'But it's about death' he said, going all art school on me.  

   He was wrong. The bulb was not dying, it was going dormant, just as it would every year in it's native climate.  But he was right that it would not bloom again, because once it dried up, he threw it away.  I did the same with my paperwhites and amaryllis for years. It seemed like too much work to try and coax another year of bloom out of these inexpensive bulbs. 

 But last year I changed my mind.  Money is tight, but not so much so that the cost of a few bulbs will break my budget. I think the amaryllis stands for a shift in how much work I feel should be expended to renew rather than discard.

I now have a complete sewing kit, with a range of colored thread to patch rips in clothing, and I use it.  I've also been organizing the tools I have scattered in drawers, closets and the garage, so that I don't keep buying the same screwdriver over and over again because I can't  find the last one....

  It turns out that tender bulbs are not that hard to keep alive from year to year.  I kept last year's amaryllis inside until all chance of a frost was past, then moved it to filtered light outside. I  watered and gave it some dilute fish fertilizer now and then until the foliage yellowed, and then stopped watering. 

  When the soil was dry I put it in the garage and ignored it for three months. In October I brought it in the house and started watering again.  Now it has five strap-like leaves and a tall flower stalk ready to open like a chrysalis to reveal it's scarlet blooms.  It's not an unmitigated success-- last year there were two stalks.  Maybe I'll try a bit more fertilizer this year. 

  The narcissus are the next experiment.  I'll give them about the same treatment, and we'll see what happens. Next winter I hope to be enjoying even more new blooms from old friends.