We have a couple of amaryllis that have just seemed to outdo
themselves this winter. Each of them has
grown two stems of flowers. One had a
four-flower stem and later a five-flower stem; the other grew both stems at the
same time and had eight lovely flowers all at once.
Amaryllis are relatively inexpensive and easy to grow. They are much harder to get to bloom the next
year, however. I have a bulb I have
tried to get to bloom for about three years now, and so far all it does when it
comes out of dormancy is set out leaves.
Not a sign of a flowering stem in sight.
Yes, I’ve read about how to get them to bloom again. But something just isn’t right. So each year we buy another amaryllis in a
pot and enjoy the flowers. But now I
have four bulbs, two of which have bloomed, one which has sent out leaves, and
one which has some green on the end of the bulb, but hasn’t done anything
yet. Of course, I hate to throw anything
away, and probably will set them out this summer to bask in the warmth and
breeze. Then I’ll fumble around with
them and try to get them to bloom this winter.
But in the end, we’ll probably end up buying one or two more that we
know will bloom for us.
My aunt Dorothy knew how to make amaryllis bloom from year
to year. When they were living at home,
she had several bulbs she would coax into blooming from year to year. She said it wasn’t hard and told me how she
did it. I thought I did the same thing,
but evidently I don’t hold my mouth right or something. Because it just doesn’t work for me.
Flower bulbs are magical things. Just think of all that is in an amaryllis
bulb. Beautiful colors, delicate
flowers, sturdy stems, a reproduction mechanism, and nourishing leaves all are
packed into a bulb that gets its nourishment from dirt, water, and the sun. There are also sensors of some kind that can
tell when water, warmth, and sunlight are present in the right mixtures. And when that happens, it signals somehow for
the bulb to grow.
Flowers, though, are like everything else on this
earth. They eventually decay and
die. Even the most beautiful of flowers
eventually turns back to the dust from where it came.
And so it is with everything else in the world. Trees, houses, automobiles, animals and
people; we all eventually turn back into the dust from whence we came. (I think Twinkies [R.I.P.] may be the only
exception to that.) Even rocks…the great
granite mountains…will eventually, they say, turn into soil and dust.
And so it goes. We do
well to remember that even though we have things to do today, and places to go
today, and people to see today, one day we too will turn back into the soil and
dirt from whence we came. And the souls
and spirits that inhabit us will go somewhere else, there to wait until thry are
united with, as the great Apostle Paul said, “the imperishable.”
When we remember that we are here for but a breath of time
in the great scheme of things, we tend to look at things differently. We tend to think differently. We tend to interact with our world
differently. And that’s a good thing
because our time here is so short compared to the forever that is coming.
If we don’t prepare for the forever in the here and now,
when will we do it? Or will we lurch
into eternity forever unprepared for what lies ahead?
No comments:
Post a Comment