An amaryllis was left on the library porch over a year ago, a holiday orphan no doubt. It's pretty common to find bags of abandoned books on the library stoop, but plants - not so much. Anyway, Judy brought the Hippeastrum foundling in that cold, winter morning along with the newspapers. She put it in the staff room where it sat on the windowsill until last week. After a year of neglect and very little water, the bulb started to turn green, then a shoot appeared, then the shoot shot up, and up, and ... up. Now the flower at the top of the 27" stalk is just beginning to open.
Here it is on the circ
ulation desk.
ulation desk.A link to an article at the USDA website about "How to Make Your Amaryllis Bloom Again."
At the library where I used to work, somebody once left a gun (in a case thankfully) in the book drop. Plants much preferred.
ReplyDeleteYes, plants are nicer than guns. BTW, the mystery of Audrey's origin may be have been solved by Laura, the children's librarian, who tells us that around the time of the bulb's abandonment, the Columbia Middle School (across the street from the library) had a fundraiser and the students were taking amaryllis bulbs home to Mom and also leaving them around the Children's Room and, in Audrey's case, on the front stoop. So Moms: check those backbacks. You never know what hides in the dark, dank depths with the pb&j crumbs.
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