Maybe I should have written this before Christmas, but with a holiday full of challenges, I just didn’t have the time. So, please put this into your memory bank for next year.
The well-known red Pointsettia
I have sort of become tired of the ubiquitous Poinsettia, native to Mexico and Central America, and named after a Joel Roberts Poinsett, who was the first U.S. Minister to Mexico in the 1820’s, and who brought Poinsettias, eventually, to gazillions of people in the U.S. and all around the world since then. But, as much it must have been quite extraordinary to see these plants when they were first introduced, it is a plant which is notoriously prone to drying out in our overheated homes in the winter, and which grows tall and lanky while trying to reach for the sun in our light-deprived homes. Then we all feel so guilty about throwing out that plant which we have tended to and bought back from the dead so many times - when we should have been baking cookies or playing with our grandchildren, or choosing different plants to decorate our homes for the holidays….What are we thinking??!?!! We are just on auto-pilot as far as Poinsettias are concerned. A total waste of our time, I would say…
Greenhouses filled with thousands of small Poinsettia plants.
When working in the greenhouses at Algonquin College, we all had flats and flats of Poinsettia cuttings to tend which we were expected to have in perfect bloom for the flower show held there each year. And ready they were, year after year, the same old plants. Probably the most interesting thing to me was that those red ‘flowers’ were not flowers at all, but bracts – modified leaves - used to attract insects to pollinate the true flowers, which are small and insignificant, and which, most of the time, fall off from excess dryness in our homes – sound familiar? Well, you probably don’t want pollinators in your house, anyway, so where do we go from here?
I read one day that there are over 100 different colours of Poinsettia…100 colours??? Do we really need all of those different colours? ( That’s like choosing a toothbrush in the pharmacy…do we really need all of those different shapes and texture and coloured bristles of toothbrushes??) I was ok with the red Poinsettia and then the white ones became available. They were pretty, quite pretty (and I know Martha loved White ones…)… And then pink – well, I don’t have a white and pink Christmas tree, nor rooms covered in pink upholstery fabric and matching walls, so that did not fit my colour scheme. I think I really went off Poinsettias when they started having white splashes on the petals…no, the bracts… Or when they brought out ones the colour of grape Kool-Aid…ugh! (sorry, I never took a picture of a purple one, so you will have to google them - yuck) But the final straw was when those grape-coloured ones became short and ruffled. That was it. Hybridizing run amok!! I don’t think I have had any kind of Poinsettia in my house ever since. Oh, and they come from the Euphorbia Family, so the sap they produce can cause dermatitis and is also not great in the house if you have pets who enjoy munching on plants. Probably won’t kill them, but could cause some issues. Another reason to get rid of them!!!
What, you may ask, have I replaced the Poinsettias with? Well, with a plant which is commonly known by one name – Amaryllis – but whose real botanical name is Hippeastrum. Maybe the word Hippeastrum is not pretty enough for the general public, so it is much better-known as Amaryllis.
So here goes, and I will be using the name Amaryllis…
I found a Portmerion platter the other day, and guess what was on it!
These are the boxed bulbs seen in supermarkets leading up to Christmas. The box contains a pot, a bulb and a handful of peat moss – how extraordinary they are – just add water and, voilà! Pure magic! While I love them as winter-flowering bulbs when there is very little colour in our homes, and have grown them in cache pots for years, mine never quite bloom for Christmas. And sometimes they just get too tall and lanky. One double white bulb in our window right now has a stem about four feet tall. Hard to make something like that look balanced and elegant….
An Amarylis bulb stretching for the light. Out of control!
So I now look for cut Amaryllis to grace the counter in the kitchen, the dining room table when we have guests (who am I fooling?? We never have anyone here these days – I am just dreaming!!), and I move them all around the house so I can enjoy them in all the rooms. This year, I bought cut Amaryllis at Metro and they came with a little sprig of white pine and I added some Ilex verticilata (Winterberry), and voilà! A lovely arrangement which lasts a good ten to twelve days after purchase.
Two or three stems of Amaryllis, a branch of cedar and a sprig of Holly make a stunning display.
They are beautiful in bud, and spectacular in bloom. Each stem usually has four to five blossoms at the top, so two stems fill out a lovely bouquet for your holiday table or entrance hall. They are native to South Africa and are often referred to as lilies because the flower resembles a Lily, but they are from a different family.
Various Amaryllis, all stunning….
Amaryllis come in quite a few colours, although the red is probably most common. But there are also whites (single and double), pinks with a picotee edging, stripes, and sometimes two-toned flowers as well. You might even find one which is quite orange with some cream highlights. And some of them rebloom in the same year. It is worth seeking out the more unusual ones as they are stunning. Again, a quick peek on the internet will give you a whole range of colours to choose from if you would like to try your hand at growing them. Many years ago, when we got those wonderful Cruickshank catalogues, they sold huge Amaryillis bulbs for about $35, quite a lot of money in those days. These bulbs are easy to keep from year to year, and very much worth the minimal effort and the initial price.
And talk about beautiful! A small sampling….
