Ah, Beautiful Blossoms of Winter

NOTE: A blog post from one of Mrs. Crumly’s unpublished works.

It’s a sight to behold, the blossoms on our sun porch – and it January.  Several years ago a friend gave me an Amaryllis bulb for Christmas.  Then, apparently, forgetting what she had given me the year before she gave me another blub the next Christmas.  Well this year these plants have been a show.  The last bulb bloomed with two very large bright red blooms and has gone out; however, Number One is still in bloom.  Every year it produces two stalks and each stalk has four super large red blossoms.  Gorgeous!!

Maybe twelve years ago I was given a strange looking plant by a friend in Gardendale.   She told me it was some kind of orchard and it bloomed in January.  Of course, the plant has grown over the years; I’ve repotted it, rooted from it and given plants away.  The blossoms look somewhat like small hyacinths and there are eight white blossoms now open.  After it finishes the bloom cycle, I’ll have to prune again.

This is to say nothing of the African Violets in bloom at the same time.  The violet story is another pass-along plant story.  A number of years ago I had a friend who worked at place that sold plants and she would grab plants headed for the garbage can and try to save them.  One year she brought me eighteen violets in need of repotting, pruning, etc.  I went into action, repotted, pruned and gave away more than plants.  I have 12 left which were repotted this fall and heavily pruned.  Four of them are now in bloom with buds showing on other plants.  These are really pretty blooms – variegated – at least most of them are.  My favorite is the purple and white one – of course, it would be since that’s Geraldine High School colors.  One year in Georgia a friend asked me if I help repot her violets.  We got a table out in the yard, emptied the overgrown violets out and I pruned and pruned, and then reset.  That night when her husband came home, she cried and said, “Mrs. Crumly has ruined my violets.”  Well in a few months she had the prettiest violets one could imagine.

Another pass along plant was given to me this Christmas and when I opened the gift I couldn’t help but shed a tear or two.  It was Paper White bulbs.  When I was a child Mother used to grow winter Narcissus (which is what Paper Whites are ).  She put gravel in a shallow pot, put the bulbs in the gravel with a little water and then stuck them way back in the cabinet and left them in the dark for several weeks.  Today’s bulbs are handled differently; however, in gravel and I planted in a deep jar to help hold up the stalks.  Their blooms are opening.

This has to be some of the best of country living.