amaryllis bulbs

I'm off once again to Virginia for a few days - both my brother and I are joining my parents this weekend, with dinner reservations scheduled for tomorrow evening.  On Saturday my brother and I are going to make our father beyond happy:  we are going with him to a University of Virginia football game on Saturday.  I can't remember the last college football game that I went to (was it when I was an undergraduate?) - but my father is thrilled and the day will be sunny and cool and it should be a fine thing to do.  My father is a sports...fanatic...and I've grown accustomed to his obsessions and even on ocassion join in, like on Saturday - it's the little things, right?

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Two years ago, my mother grew some incredible pumpkin vines in her garden, and my favorite photographs of my mother are of her walking around in her pumpkin 'patch'.  The vines started to take over much of her backyard garden - vines that she grew from seeds that a friend gave her, 'french pumpkins' she always called them.  Large and flat and white and the kind of pumpkin that you would scoop out and fill with some kind of stew and bake in your oven.

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But today I stopped by a local nursery to see what amaryllis bulbs they had in stock - I thought that a few bulbs might be a nice thing to take to my Mother.  Of course I found a few, and a few more - and I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the fun varieties and ended up getting her five (which I will pot up on Sunday for her):

• Scarlet Baby
• Cybister 'La Paz'
• Elvas
• Rembrandt van Rijn
• Papillio

Mom will enjoy these over the coming weeks as she braves the side effects of a new treatment - she will be able to watch them grow in her sunny window off of the kitchen.

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Of course I got a few for myself too.  (For the Airstream?  What was I thinking?)  Something that I have never quite gotten used to in my southern garden is the ability to put amaryllis bulbs into the ground - they do fine outdoors here.  When I got them in the fall for the holidays, later in the winter I move them out in an area of the garden - and when they bloom again in the spring I always think about how odd they look there.  Striking perhaps, stunning even...but still odd.

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(The Cybister's look fascinating - I've never grown them before - and I need to read up on them a bit.)

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So Stanley and I hit the road tomorrow - driving up to Virginia which only takes a bit longer than air travel.  It's strange leaving my house with no dogs left behind and I'm sure that it will be even stranger, returning to a house with a lonely three-legged cat.  On the way home tonight I was on the phone with my brother, lamenting my lack of the needed accessory to listen to my iPod through my car speakers, when I realized that a soon-to-open Circuit City was in the shopping area next to where I was sitting in traffic.  I turned in, and the store had conveniently just opened - eight minutes prior to my arrival.  I was initially horrified by the line of fifty or more people leading up to the front door, but then learned that they were in line to get the autograph of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.  Good news!  Everyone else there was focused on those cheerleaders, and in less than 10 minutes I had just what I needed.

So Stanley and I will have music for the trip.  Thanks to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.      

Comments

[Annie in Austin]

Amaryllis for your mom, your presence at a football game for your dad, an intimate ride with Stanley and dinner with your brother - quite a special weekend you have planned, Pam.

The Rembrandt amaryllis is especially gorgeous, and I'm also still amazed that our bulbs are planted outside to bloom again.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[Pam]

Thanks Annie.

[Kim]

Have a good trip!

... and please report back on the 'La Paz' when it opens for her. I eyed that one myself at WFF. And if it's not the one from 'Cottage Living' (or whatever that magazine is) that they underplanted with 'Angelina' sedum instead of just topping it off with moss, it's similarly cool and spidery-looking. Very fun. :)

[Pam]

Kim, I'm looking forward to seeing that one as well - the images look really interesting! I'll try and remember to take a photograph of it. WFF?