Just checking in...and talk of blooms

15 years ago

Hi all,

It's been a rough week with bad news re: brother followed by similar news about a cousin. Bad choices catch up with you. I'm officially in a "funk".

I have good news about blooms. My cheapo $3.98 Walmart bagged amaryllis are blooming. The white ones are and the pink will be. They are big gorgeous blooms and I'm happy that I bought them. Everything that I bought and forced earlier is just about caput. La Paz (I bought last spring at the arboretum sale - had just bloomed) has sent up and amazingly tall scape. It's starting to open. Queen of Hearts is struggling to get the 3rd scape up. The 2nd is opening in the neck of the bulb - abort abort! President Johnson is a superstar with 4 scapes!! Lemon Star has another coming as does Charisma.

Last year's bulbs, Lady Jane and Aphrodite are sending up scapes. HOORAH!!

I think I will clean house and then go get some hot and sour soup from the local Chinese place. Even though it's 80 here today (and I've just put in my tomatoes and peppers. AND...cilantro for lots of salsa)!! Sugar snap peas are up and at 'em...so there's hope.

Man from wine tasting has e-mailed and called. Off to a bit of a rocky start, but I think it's turned around. Since when do people apologize for kissing ya? Hey...it was nice!

:-)

K

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Comments (5)

jodik_gw
15 years ago
I'm sorry to hear about your cousin... and yes, our choices in life do catch up to us eventually. More prayers are on the way...

But you do have some bright spots shining through the clouds... all those wonderful bulbs in flower... and, a new guy? I wish you the best... it's so nice to have that companionship! I don't know what I'd do without Larry!

The older you get, the harder dating gets! I couldn't imagine dating at this point in my life... I'd be so critical, and so comparing everyone to Larry... no one would stack up! I doubt I'd get any second dates! LOL! They'd have enough of me with one date, and never call back!

I've got scapes starting on my little pink garden amaryllis, though it'll be a while before they bloom... I just planted more seeds, made some more pollinations, and there are still a few blooms going... Lemon Star, Bogota, White Christmas, Pink Impression, Minerva, Queen of Hearts... and Misty will open any day now! I'm so excited! I can't wait to see Misty!

It's been a troubling time for you, Kristi, I know... but without some clouds and rain, there will be no rainbow and no spring flowers... things will look up... you'll see!

In the meantime, I'm sending prayers and good thoughts your way... and I'm always available if you need a long distance shoulder. :-)
PRO
Jan Sword-Rossman Realty 239-470-6061
15 years ago
Kristi, I am sorry to hear about your cousin. My thoghts & prayers are also with you, just hang in there!!!! things will turn around when you're list expecting.

I am glad your date is going well for you.

Jan
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Well, since I've firmly decided to devote my time exclusively to bulbs, I'm sure I'll have some room to grow a few seeds! I had been bitten by the orchid bug earlier, but am now discovering that I simply don't have the environment most of them require. Luckily, I didn't go overboard in my collecting! I'm thinning out my overpopulated jungle this spring, and rearranging the shelving units to make the most of the alcove area they sit in, and the positioning of window and lights. Once I get that all done, and re-pot some of my bulbs, I'm sure I'll have a bit of space left over for new acquisitions and seed trays! In the past, I've had a hard time letting go of plants that don't do well, and I have a bad habit of keeping everything and trying to nurse it through, even though it's usually a lost cause. This being a new year, I'm more determined than ever to quit plant pack-ratting, so to speak, and dump the ones that are obviously failing... bulbs excluded, of course! I won't have a lot of seeds from bulbs to trade this year, but I will have lots of perennials by early summer, and lots of perennial seeds by next fall! I will have Lemon Star seeds, though.
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It looks like ROMANTIC EVENING to me. Sometimes flowers try to double or crest, sometimes the bloom is smaller than the registration info indicates, sometimes the color's different. Or scape height is different. Or something else doesn't quite match. I just had FFO on John Benz's LAST MAN STANDING, and, if I hadn't had it labeled, I'm not sure I'd have recognized it. LMS was registered as a rose red bitone, 26" and a 4.5" flower. Unlike in previous years, when its attributes were just as the registration info indicated they would be, this FFO is a pale rosy-pink, with even paler pink sepals, on a shortish scape and with a flower something smaller than 4.5". Similarly, my JOLLY GOOD FELLOW flowered pale this year. Oh, and I just had a bloom on COBRASKIN NECKTIE that was so pale that it reminded me of NEON RAINBOW.
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I'll second what Viburnumvalley wrote about starting your own thicket of Aralia spinosa - all you have to do is pull up a small stem or two from an existing thicket, taking at least a few roots along with it, or even just the tissue along the stem where roots emerged before you pulled it. If you get only a few roots - and you probably will if you just yank one out of the ground - remove most of the leaves from the stem, leaving only a few small or partial leaves, or perhaps no leaves, then plant it where you want it, water, and keep the soil moist for a month or two. Eventually the stem will grow new roots and new leaves, and you've got a plant. I've done this a few times, sometimes failing to keep the soil consistently moist, and have had perhaps 75% success. If I was planting this again, I'd pull a bunch of stems and plant more than I think I want. This is a rather gaunt plant that looks better with multiple stems, so plant 4 where you want one, and if your success is the same as mine you have a very good chance that at least one will take root, and probably you'll end up with two or three which will make an attractive stand of Aralia. now is a good time of year to transplant aralia spinosa because there should be small (perhaps 1 or 2 foot), new shoots emerging from the ground that lend themselves to transplanting. I think older shoots would work too, but they're larger and harder to handle. If you see this plant along a roadside, powerline, or edge you may be able to find new shoots emerging from the ground in a place where they will eventually be cut, mowed, or sprayed. These are good candidates for transplanting without having any impact at all on the parent clump of plants. Of course I wouldn't worry too much about pulling up a few shoots from any healthy clump - a healthy plant produces enough new growth that it can easily afford to lose a few shoots. Wear thick gloves.
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just checking in
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Comments (2)
Hey, Tracy. I can certainly understand how you feel. We have had to put Christin's (and Zack's) crosses up a couple of times after they have been hit by cars. This last time, they just disappeared and we're wondering if it was the city that took them down or what. They have been important to us, but as time has gone by, not as important as they were at first. We will probably put them up again sometime later, but it is just not real pressing to us anymore. We know where she is in our hearts, and we know that eventually we will be the last ones to remember her. Unfortunately, it is just reality. I definitely understand your hurt, though. A couple of years after Christin left, we thought that they would be making a four lane where she was hit and we were devastated to think that the crosses would be moved. So many things ease as time goes on. I just call it "surrendering" to it all. Thank you so much for going back to Christin's site and for your sweet compliment. I didn't realize that your birthdays were so close. Just keep taking one step, one day at a time, and keep the faith. Lu
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Noni Morrison
15 years ago
Kristi, this time will pass, and the pain will become more barable as it becomes more distant from the hearing of it. IN the meantime, spend as much time with the growing plants as you can. They are the antithesis of untimely and unfortunate death.

And remember how much that is alive and good you have around you...your beautiful household companions, your "date", your friends. Spring is probably here for you though it seems on hold for many of us (Likely snow tonight and blossoms a month late from the usual here!) Spring is all about renewal and new chances...grow into it, let go of the past sadness and revel in the spring and sunshine and new growth.

It is hard to be sad when seeds are sprouting all around and flowers are budding!

My glorious show of winter blossoms is almost over too. I think I am down to 15 buds at various stages, but I did have atleast one flower from almost everything. I seem to have a lot of non descript pale red and white ones that I can not identify.They look like Minerva's anemic country cousins! I finally figured out that they were the ones that were in the Jackson and Perkins basket of Amaryllis I had sent to my Mom the last year she was with us (2002. She had had a stroke but she still enjoyed watching those amaryllis grow and after Dad moved to a nursing home he sent the basket home with me. For 3 years they would pop into bloom just when I most missed Mom and I got to feeling that they were messages from her. They look so subdued though, I think they must have had more light before. They had multiplied in the basket over the 3 yrs and I ended up with 5 of them blooming over the past few weeks. One of these days I will get their pic into photobucket. (That seems to be one of my least favorite ways to spend my time.)
salpal
15 years ago
Kristi, I am sorry for your recent troubles. I find it hard to let go of my loved ones. I lost my Dad already 4 yrs ago- it seems like a week ago. I ran across this recently and it resonated with me.

A beautiful poem by Bill Holm, a Minnesotan who died recently himself:

Letting Go of What Cannot be Held Back:

Let go of the dead now.
The rope in the water,
the cleat on the cliff,
do them no good anymore.
Let them fall,sink, go away,
become invisible as they tried
so hard to do in their own dying.
We needed to bother them
with what we called help.
We were the needy ones.
The dying do their own work with
tidiness, just the right speed,
sometimes even a little
satisfaction. So quiet down.
Let them go. Practice
your own song. Now.
jodik_gw
15 years ago
That's a very nice poem, Sally... very appropriate. I lost my Mom several years ago, and it still hurts a lot. With her passing, I felt somehow disconnected from my own past... she was the last person to know me as a baby. It's a strange feeling, and I don't know that it will ever truly pass.

But, as hard as it is to let go, Lizalily is right... this is a time of renewal, a time of rebirth, a time to start over as everything around us begins to come back to life and grow once more. Spring is the time to let the past rest, and to move forward down the path of today toward tomorrow.

Be happy, for those that go before us now have no pain, no suffering, and are at peace. Be happy, and be ready to write a new chapter in the book of life!

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and stories... I think that by sharing our grief, we lessen it... it's so nice to have understanding friends to lean on... we all help hold each other up. :-)

Just checking in...and talk of blooms

Comments (5)

jodik_gw

Jan Sword-Rossman Realty 239-470-6061

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Noni Morrison

salpal

jodik_gw

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