Day 233: Twenty years. Twenty years, or maybe even more. That's how long I have been waiting for this to happen. My Clivia is finally blooming! I had just watered it a few days ago and didn't notice buds, but neither was I looking for them. I mean, the Clivia has been nothing but strappy, amaryllis-like leaves for as long as I've had it. Why would I bother to look for buds? A friend had one which bloomed regularly in her north window with very little care, so I figured it would be easy to bring one into flower. Ah, how wrong that assumption was! When mine got too big for its pot, I divided it and tried planting one of the pieces outdoors, a system the experts assured me would result in flowering once I brought it inside for the winter. The experiment failed miserably and that offshoot ("pup") died, but I had kept the second piece in a smaller pot and it was still doing well. Or rather, it was producing healthy leaves but nothing else, and so it continued for at least ten years beyond the division. I resigned myself to thinking of it as a foliage plant. My enforced patience has at long last been rewarded. My Clivia is blooming!
No comments:
Post a Comment