Why I Oughta...

This past weekend, we went over to the local garden center to meet the Big Guy and his reindeer.  We've done this same deal a number of years and it is a nice way to start the holiday season.  In addition to having the kids visit with Santa for a few minutes, we also buy our annual allotment of Christmas flowers - Amaryllis bulbs.  These bulbs are big and nicely cared for and (this year) cost $21 each.  I'm pretty sure that when we started doing this, these bulbs were $15.  This year, we're growing three new bulbs as well as attempting to force four from last year.  I picked out one and two of the kids picked out their own, too.   Below are the tags of the three we came home with:  Flamenco Queen, Magic Touch and Sunshine Nymph.   These bulbs come nicely packed with a little padding for protection.  They're also MUCH larger than the bulbs you'd find in the typical packaged 'set' that includes a container, potting material and the bulb.  MUCH larger.  See bel

Well, we didn't have Christmas flowers.  But, we sure do have New Year's flowers in two of our containers.  We came home from a long weekend to find out that both the trio of Red Lion Amaryllis bulbs and the red and white striped Sunshine Nymph have bloomed and opened up wide.  The last time that I shared photos of these was on December 28th , so in just a week they went from "beginning to open" to "full bloom" that you can see below.   The Lemon Star Amaryllis (our first green-colored bulb) is at the front of the table in the photo above and you can see that it has grown to be the tallest of the flower stems (Despite being watered with the alcohol/water mix), but the furthest behind in terms of blooming.  Thinking we'll see that one open up in the next week or so. Below are a few photos that I've taken over the last few days of the Sunshine Nymph flowers.  They're quite striking and have red petals with a white stripe down the middle.  The pet