Beginnings

Hippeastrum (commonly called amaryllis) was the heart of last weekend’s work. October gardening tasks involve cleaning up and closing down, with one exception. It’s time to ready hippeastrum bulbs for winter blooming.

I freed about eight of last year’s bloomers from their pots, trimmed off roots, laid them on their sides, and placed them in the garage to rest and dry for a few months. In January, I’ll replant them and wait. They may bloom again, but more likely, they’ll grow lovely strapping leaves but no blooms. Blooms may come next year, after another period of rest.

It takes about two years for hippeastrum to recover from blooming and reboot for another bloom cycle. During those two years, the bulbs fatten up. Inside, the embryonic materials of future flowers and leaves swell as the existing leaves outside the bulb photosynthesize sunlight and send that good energy down into the bulb for food reserves.

We had three ‘Minerva’ bulbs from 2016 that were ready to bloom again this year, and I potted those up. There’s no doubt these will bloom this winter. The bulbs are positively pregnant, about 34 or 36 centimeters across. I spray painted some old terra cotta pots a glistening silver, and the bulbs were planted in them. I potted one in a large teal pot for Mom. We give her a ready-to-go hippeastrum every year at this time. She enjoys watching the inert-looking bulbs send up leaves, then scapes, and finally, big, beautiful blooms. She returns the bulb to me after the blooms have faded, and I run it through the cycle again.

A bulb is the genesis of it all. From a rough, compact little piece of plant tissue emerges something 20 times its size, completely gorgeous, and fully alive. No one understands what spark of a phenomenon makes it happen. It’s a wonder that never gets old for me.

The tradition of planting hippeastrum each October is almost if not as thrilling to me as our annual spring planting. It never stops amazing me that a palm-sized knob of what’s basically a food storage organ contains within it everything – a seminal growing point, an unexpanded flower shoot, a miniaturized stem, and a basal plate – needed for life and growth and reproduction.

This is why the hippeastrum bulb enthralls me. Everything that’s apprehendable about the universe is inside this one bulb, as well as the information that we haven’t apprehended yet. It’s all in there. The origin of life, the mechanism of growth, the devices of reproduction, the process of dormancy, the mystery of death, even the answer to our own existence.

You can walk into any garden center, Home Depot, or Wal Mart in October and for about $7, bring home one of these alchemical miracles and watch its karmic journey unfold.

I’ll be making a trip to Ballek’s in East Haddam soon to hand pick some new hippeastrum bulbs. Every year, I add a few new ones to the collection. Every year, there are a couple of new varieties I’ve never seen before. They’re all beautiful. I’m a child in a candy store when I stand before boxes of hippeastrum bubs, deciding which ones to bring home.

In our refrigerator now, we’re chilling bags of tulip, hyacinth, and daffodil bulbs for indoor forcing in mid and late winter. There’s nothing better than the sweet, sunny spot in our home where, in the grip of winter, green plants are growing, and pots of bulbs are blooming. It’s an absolute oasis in the desert. 

Even my husband - who, before we married, had no experience nor interest in indoor gardening – hovers around our winter indoor garden marveling at a bulb first peeking from soil or a hyacinth’s roots reaching down into a cobalt glass forcing jar.

Today is October 16. The sun is growing dim. Winter is fast approaching. In New England, we transition from autumn to winter in a matter of moments. They’re saying this winter is going to be a tough one. So be it. I’ll busy myself with these amazing bulbs and immerse my mind in the good, green life we’ll nurture in our home. This is not just survival maneuvers. I’m deeply, deeply grateful for horticulture. And never more than now, when the earth all around us is readying for its long, dark rest.

Barbie xo