Something interesting happened this spring; my Easter Lilies turned bright red!
Worst part about it, I knew they would.
I was going to say that’s because a drop of Christ’s Blood dripped into the pot, but that sounded trite at best and blasphemous at worst.
Then I thought I would say they are reflecting my red face when I realized lent ends today and I have yet to go to a Lenten service at church this year. I even missed Stations of the Cross yesterday across the street from the local abortion clinic. I have no excuse, so I’ll not discuss that.
And I was reminded that excuses only serve the maker so I decided to come clean. The lilies are red because they are amaryllis bulbs and they are supposed to be red.
I love these bulbs, but they do cause some difference of opinions in our house. Mary thinks they are messy and not worth the work.
If you ever grew them you know you have to put them in the cellar, crawl space or a cool garage for a couple of months or they won’t bloom. Follow that with a couple of weeks in a sunny window and they send up some beautiful (but too long, stems with blossoms on top. Most of mine this year had two stems with four blooms on each stem. Beautiful blossoms, I might add.
They present the first problem, the stems are not strong enough to hold the heavy blossoms. The stems grow toward the sun and in a day or two they are trying o squeeze into the blinds. This year I made a string fence a couple of feet above the soil, and turned the planter daily, or I should say, almost daily. Three days ago I forgot to turn them so when I came into the study yesterday I gently pried them out of the blinds, wiped the yellow pollen off the white wood and turned the pot. I must admit the beauties had stretched the string about as far out as they could but, I was confident they would grow toward the window with-out tipping.
Of course, I was wrong and yesterday morning I they landed in my leather chair, pot and all.
Being a good husband I tried to clean up the mess before Mary saw it, but when she didn’t hear any noise coming from the study she came in to “help” me.
I chopped about 10 inches off each stem and put them in the headless hound pitcher you see on these poorly photographed picture. No apologies, I’m taking it to Brian and Abby’s house tomorrow when we have our family Easter brunch.
Problems still remain. One planter in the study has ten blooms trying to escape the fence and two more pots are starting to send up there buds in our crawl space. I also have 30+ seedling bulbs in pots on the driveway. The red ones are hybrids and I am interested in finding out what color they will be when they bloom. If I have a winning blossom, I will name it after my loving wife, Mary.
Have a happy Easter, and celebrate with your family if at all possible.
If you would like to have some free amaryllis bulbs, (if you live far away, I’ll have to charge your shipping of a couple bucks), or know someone who would, let me know. I’ll have them available in the fall. Or, you can pay big bucks and buy them from a store. If you love beautiful flowers and have a sunny window, give them a try. Who know you may find a way to make the stems strong and/or short. If you live south enough, you may be able to keep them in the ground all year and save yourself lots of trouble.
This one ended in my workshop!
What a happy work environment!