Ah....there's nothing like a good ol' Zombie at Halloween, now is there? Unless it's a Zombie at Christmas of course.
LC and I can be a little competitive when it comes to gardening. You know...which one of us can find the best deal around town on three gallon boxwood...who ordered their bulbs first...whose ivy topiary is still alive...which one of us hates the Oklahoma heat more...and on and on.
So it seemed appropriate to resurrect (these being zombies and all) a tradition of my in-laws -- an amaryllis race to see whose bulb blooms first. We both potted up our respective 'Zombie' Amaryllis on our 4 Your Garden segment yesterday. Here's how we did it;
* In snug pots...about an inch larger in circumference that the width of the bulb;
* With a coffee filter over the drainage hole to hold in the dirt;
* Leaving about 25% of the bulb exposed at the top to keep the emerging stem from getting waterlogged;
*And then watering well JUST ONCE before the green tips start to appear. Then we'll water them regularly while they continue to grow in a brightly lit area.
As is typical for the two of us, food was the wager---whoever loses has to buy the other breakfast.
Note how appropriately ghoulish we look under the harsh studio lights, images compliments of our iPhones...a little (okay, very) goofy too.
Important measures were taken to insure fairness and prevent illegal doping. We used different style pots in case LC tries to pull a switcharoo...a producer suggested we put our initials on the bottom of the pots for additional security.
Off the record (of course) LC threatened to use a blow dryer to speed up the process, but I refused to be bullied. We'll provide status updates periodically to see who has the lead.
This year I selected my amaryllis bulbs on the basis of their funky names alone. 'Razzle-Dazzle', 'Elvas', 'Zombie', 'Trentino'. You can find them all HERE if you want to grow them yourselves...they are all Christmas bloomers I believe.
Wouldn't this be a fun thing to do with your kids over the holiday season?!
Labels: 4 Your Garden, Amaryllis, tradition
