Why I Oughta...

Just a few days ago, I posted photos of the three different Amaryllis bulbs that we're growing this season and showed how the new (to us) Spider variety - La Paz - was way, way, way ahead of the others.  Just a few days later and the La Paz is putting on a full holiday show.    It has three tall, slender (maybe too tall) flower stalks that each have multiple flowers dangling from the top.   See below for the current state: I say 'maybe too tall' because I didn't get around to watering this with an alcohol mix until it was too late, so it shot way up.  I've used a single-prong flower stem support to keep them upright.  As the stalks were growing up, I was able to sort-of 'tuck' them into the support and keep them centered and (hopefully) stop them from flopping over. Here, below, is the Amaryllis support that I use to keep the top-heavy flowers from flopping-over.  It is about 12" tall and I stick it into the soil at the base of the bulb.

A quick check-in on our small grouping of Hellebores - Lenten Roses - in the backyard here in the garden diary.  These are planted in a small colony of four.  The last time I showed these was early December when all four were still green and leafy .  As I've mentioned in a few other recent posts, we had a VERY cold period of weather right around Christmas where we saw sub-zero temperatures with no snow cover for insulation.  That moved just about everything in the garden along to their final dormancy stage.   When I was out this past weekend looking at the Hellebores (one Sally's Shell, three Ivory Prince ), I noticed that there was a change that you can see in the photo below:  The Sally's Shell Hellebore has taken on mostly brown and dead foliage while the three more-recently-planted Ivory Prince Hellebores are all still winter green: These are some of my EARLIEST bloomers and typically have the first growth that requires protection from late Winter...