Ha! got your attention with that title, didn't I? Imagine if the holiday amaryllis were marketed by its common name ... yes, naked lady. It's also supposedly known as the "Jersey lily," after the isle of Jersey, not our Joizey. One thing's clear, for all this confusion. A lot of plants we're sold under the name of amaryllis are really something else.
Anyway, here's mine. Still blooming, though Christmas is fading and one of the four giant, bell-shaped flowers has come and gone. I enjoy these tropical plants but they occasionally cause Florida-envy. Wouldn't it be fun to have them outside in the garden all year?
They can be annoying, though. They do nothing for what seems weeks, then suddenly shoot up inches a day until the huge buds fill out and burst open. Next thing you know the whole top-heavy spike has crashed to the sill or counter. I propped mine up with a stake but the pot's too shallow to support it for long.
Perhaps it's time to try the dwarf varieties. And as for keeping these plants to bloom another season, I've never been able to do that well. It seems like so much trouble - and so counter to the plant's nature, at least up north.
The good news is that this year, my red amaryllis grew and bloomed for several weeks before starting to wind down. Another one, from Morris Arboretum, was smaller and daintier, a quiet little beauty. It was white with a lime green throat and pink edging. Quite a looker.
This is hard to convey in a digital photo, but believe me, I must've peered inside those flowers a dozen times a day to see the green. Once I held it up to the light to see just how green it was. I never saw such an amaryllis.
So while they can get top-heavy, breaking stems and spilling dirt, they also bring something nice to our dark winter days. In the gardening world, I guess that qualifies them as "ephemerals," fleeting and fading after a brief, colorful life. Enough of a reason to exist, I'd say, and a gardening concept I have always loved.
As for how they got the "naked lady" moniker...perhaps best not to go there!
