Amaryllis Watch

I've been away from home this week, but as soon as I walked in the door I went to check on my amaryllis. 

What I found was kind of a bad news, good news situation.

The two pots in the back (the ones that look like soil with just a few tiny shoots) are amaryllis bulbs that I tried to rebloom this year, with very little success. Neither of the two main bulbs has done anything; there are just the beginnings of struggling green leaves from two little bulblets off the bulb on the left. I'll probably just leave them (ha, ha!) and see what happens.

The pot in the front is my "rescue amaryllis" with the flower stalk that was bent at a right angle when it called to me. It did straighten up quite nicely, which I appreciate since I carried it around from window to window to provide it with maximum sunlight. I did not appreciate that I had missed the flowers, with only dying blooms left. But then I took a closer look ...

and saw a new flower bud emerging beside the yellowing stalk! I'm not sure who the patron saint of flowers is, 

but I would like to express my thanks for this reward and the promise of more blooms!

I do have one more bulb that I may have been slightly more successful with. 

I'm trying not to check this one more than five or six times a day. 

I've also got some backup insurance in my quest for flowers in the winter - hyacinth bulbs! I was happy to find that I had indeed put some in the refrigerator in the fall. They feel a bit dehydrated in places and maybe just the tiniest bit mushy in others, but I'll be watching them closely for root growth over the next few weeks, while imaging their heavenly fragrance in February. Fingers crossed!