I have no talent with plants, but here’s a weird story. Two Christmases ago, a friend gave me an amaryllis bulb.
It bloomed beautifully then shed a mess of red petals. I was ready to toss it in the compost bin when Ed, my husband, speculated about what would happen if we simply left it alone. OK, why not?
Far from dying, it grew a profusion of long green tulip-like leaves – and stayed that way. When the weather warmed up, I popped it outside on our upper deck. There it flourished: the ultimate boring plant.
Winter, back inside. Boring leaves persisted. Summer back out on the deck. No change. Finally though this fall, the flopping green leaves, by now 3 or 4 feet tall, began to die.
This is it, I thought, plucking off yet another rotting yellow leaf. The mundane end to our curiosity experiment. Out you go, time to rejoin the earth.
Then I noticed a strange oblong shape at the root. Could that be a bud? Damned if it wasn’t! The stem grew like a triffid several inches a day until – wham – four crimson flowers burst out of it.
Even stranger, yet another bud has appeared. What did I do right?
Turns out my neglect was just the right thing: loads of sunlight on the deck and dry soil from forgetting to water it.
I guess this triffid’s a keeper!