AMARYLLIS ANGST

Who knew that a person could stop nature in its tracks?  Who knew that something that happens automatically, every year, for everyone, could be stopped in its tracks in my house?  Who knew I could stop an amaryllis from blooming by just having it in my house?  Well, besides me; I did.  I knew it.

Just in case you don’t know what an amaryllis is, I’m talking about those indestructible bulbs that they sell at Christmas.  You bring them home from the store, take them out of their box and they immediately sprout up, grow at least four inches per day, and produce so many flowers at the top that they usually fall over if you don’t stake them up.  They are gorgeous.  They are strong.  They are self sufficient. 

Except at my house.  This is where they come to go into deep, dark depression.  They don’t die, exactly, but the term “failure to thrive” is putting it mildly.

I’ve had other amaryllis over the years.  People tell me that they are still enjoying the one their mother got for Christmas in 1962, but that’s not what happens when they come to me.  They bloom the first year, struggle the next year, and if I didn’t surrender them to someone better at houseplants before the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to House Plants intervened, they would all be dead by now.  I had pretty much sworn off even trying to grow one by my sixth decade but I won this one.  I took that as a sign that Lady Luck thought I should try again.  In retrospect I think possibly Lady Luck was inebriated (I won it at a Christmas party after all), but for sure Mother Nature wasn’t in on the decision to trust me with another victim.  She hasn’t helped out one bit.

Fresh from the nursery where all its conditions were perfect, and then given to my sister as we were going to be gone for a month, this baby grew and bloomed spectacularly.  I saw the photos on Face book.  It’s the closest I’ve been to it when it was vibrant and healthy.  I was in Australia at the time.  Apparently that’s the safe distance for me to own an amaryllis from.

But, we came home, my sister handed the poor thing back to me, and it’s been all downhill since then.

I do read up on these things.  One is supposed to keep it in the sunlight and water it throughout the summer.  Come fall it will die back which is when you put it in a paper bag, in the dark, in the cool basement, and mark on your calendar to go get it for round two in November.  I did all these things.

It obliged me with leaves; limp noodley things, but they were green and firm to the touch so I was encouraged.  No flower stems, no buds, no flowers, but further reading said that sometimes they take a year off.  I repeated the paper bag/cool/dark business last year and hoped for the best.

Last November when I retrieved this sleeping beauty she showed no signs of life at all.  No signs of death either, mind you – the bulb is firm, there is no mold or disease.  It just seems to be in some sort of stasis – kind of what they want to do with astronauts to keep them alive on long voyages so they awaken when the conditions are safe for life.

Yeah, exactly like that.  At this moment in time the conditions are not safe for amaryllis life.

I can grow things outside where Mother Nature has a fighting chance to step in and tend to her babies, but plants in my indoor custody are doomed.  A friend from long ago who shared my morbid talent with house plants said something that has always stuck with me – what we needed was a plant that thrived on neglect.  I don’t know if she ever found hers but I have a forty year old umbrella tree that is still hanging in there.  I think it may well be up to surviving the apocalypse.

Other than that I have a ‘death row’ of sorts going on in my south-facing window ... an amaryllis in suspended animation, a pot of lemon seeds too smart to germinate, a foolhardy morning glory that stowed away in the soil I used for the lemon seeds (but it’s green and optimistic so it gets to stay!), and last year’s Valentine orchid that has tried to commit suicide twice by leaping to its death off its perch.

Welcome to my den of horrors.  Spring can’t come soon enough.