Sunday, April 14, 2013

This year’s Amaryllis

Each year in November or so, our SuperStore offers amaryllis bulbs for sale.  The boxes are beautifully presented with a photo of the amaryllis in full bloom that looks surreal – you just can’t imagine the bulb would produce a flower like this. Most times it’s a bit of a disappointment because, for a variety of reasons, the result is not as perfect as the photo on the box.

But this year we ended up with a bloom that was so amazing we had to call family and friends over to see it.  It was HUGE, the color was stunning, and all four trumpet-like blooms emerged together.  It didn’t start out that way.

As Christmas approached, a secondary stem came up from the left side of the bulb and produced two decent blooms.  When they faded, we cut the stalk back to the base.  And then the right side produced another stem which also bore a couple of nice blooms.  It appeared the main primary stem was not going to emerge and we were tempted to toss it out.  But then a week or two later a bit of green started showing.  For the next two weeks an enormous stalk shot up and then displayed this bloom:

amaryllis

Amazing!