Good Goddess!

The life of the amaryllis gardener remains 2 parts delight, 98 parts confusion. Remember "Green Goddess"? It bloomed in December; bloomed again in February; and now it's blooming again, in September. I'd been dutiful about trying, for once, to keep all four of my amaryllis bulbs happy and well-fed over the summer, in the hopes that I might finally nail the trick of getting them to bloom indoors over the winter. So I repotted them in fresh potting soil in snugly fitting pots this spring, and have kept them in a sheltered but sunny nook of the garden, with regular infusions of plant food. What the books have led me to expect is for the plants to grow foliage over the summer (more leaves corresponding to more inflorescences), then to go dormant mid-autumn, and, if then left to hibernate in a cool dark place for a couple of months, to put forth their sought-for blooming stalks. As I admire the lovely, yet strangely anachronistic bloom, I'm apt to exclaim, Where does it say that amaryllis blooms outdoors during the summer?, once again forgetting what I'm wont to forget—that plants don't read books.