So on my sister's blog (http://lagniappeca.blogspot.com/) I commented on her posting about our annual family Amaryllis bulb that our mother sends each year. Including giving her tips on how to keep it alive from year to year. You can link to the post here (I hope):
http://lagniappeca.blogspot.com/2005/11/annual-amaryllis.html. Here's the quick & dirty - I have a history in my family that I am a plant-killer. Sometimes out of sheer meanness (telling a clematis that I hoped it would die...and it did) and sometimes from overwatering (poor, poor little cactus). This year, we have hit a new high, or low, depending on your perspective.
Every year, my parents send each of us an amaryllis bulb, and so far, I have managed to not only not kill them, but to have them bloom successfully 2 years for each of them. Then this year rolled around, and I had to open my mouth. I mentioned to my sister on her blog that I found that the best care to get the amarylli bulbs to bloom for a second season was essentially to ignore the "damn thing" until December. This was a mistake. First, my 2004 bulb decided that it didn't like being spoken of that way, and flatly refused to grow any new leaves or bloom. Then, last week, my 2005 bulb decided that it had enough of my verbal abuse and THREW ITSELF OFF THE COUNTERTOP, breaking off 3 of it's 4 blossoms, and ending it's life too soon. Lee was in the basement and Connor and I were in the family room. I heard a big splat, and when I made it into the kitchen I found it, broken and sad with dirt pooled all around it, on the floor.
I'll never give gardening advice again. I am the Grim Reaper of the Garden.
6 comments:
No no no! You are the best gardener ever! You have discovered a sentient plant! I admit, it was a suicidal sentient botanical, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere.
There must be a suicidal gene among amarylli. One of my past-year's amarylli repeatedly pitched itself off my mantlepiece.
1. Tripp, you are a diligent blog reader and I must do better,
2. I'm pretty sure that the only "sense" this plant had was to get away from me as fast as possible, and
3. Megan, I am glad to find out that I am not the only person who has received a suicidal plant.
I think that 2005 was just a bad year for amarylli -- mine apparently rotted in the pot. En route to me, of course (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). But I must also confess that I'm selfishly glad to hear that your amaryllis was already in a battered state when you put it out on your back porch, as I was in mortal fear that my dog had done it in when I let him out while we were at your house on Friday night :)
Colleen, I bet we can safely place at least part of the blame on the vendor, which puts the bulbs in pots that are way too light to counterbalance the top-heavy weight of a tall plant in bloom.
Erin, mortal fear over a plant? When you were there to babysit my child? Now, if I had left Connor out and Brownie had knocked him over, that's another story. And a reason to report me to Child Protective Services...
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