The amaryllis bulb I purchased this year finally bloomed 3 weeks after Christmas; its beauty surpassed my expectations, and it was forgiven. I knew it was going to be of the apple blossom type, white with variegated pink and red lines, but I wasn’t expecting a double bloom. The beauty of the flower is awesome and reminds me to praise the Creator of the heavens and the Earth.

The macro photograph of the blossoming center shows the beautiful melding of the colors and the chartreuse green of the stems. I love the details the camera picks up that the eye sometimes misses when gazing at the flower as a whole.

The stem is quite long, 16 1/2 inches from bulb to the top to where the stems begin to bear the flowers. This makes for a spectacular display, but whenever I’ve had an amaryllis so tall, I’ve also had to stake it in some way.

To keep the plant looking natural, I usually clip off a forked Branch from one of my bushes or trees and use that to help it stand upright. I always try to choose one that follows the curve of the pot so it won’t pierce the bulb and let bacteria get into it.

I also saved an amaryllis bulb from last Christmas. I did everything required. I let the long, strappy leaves grow all summer outdoors on the porch. Sometime in September or October, I stopped watering and then cut away the yellowing and brown leaves. I could see that the top of the bulb was green, but it displayed no shoots reemerging from the top. A week or so ago, I decided to give it a bit of a nudge to get it blooming. I took it out of the cold window I’d been storing it in and placed it in a Ziploc bag on top of a heating mat. Voila, within a few days, I saw a rounded tip of a leaf at the top, and sure enough, true to its nature, the leaves started growing at a galloping rate. I am hoping it will send up a flower stalk in the next few weeks. Updates will follow.