Fleeting flowers

Looking outside at my snowy backyard I am comforted by the indoor greenery and flowers that sit in our solarium and throughout the house. This year is the first in quite a few where we have much growing inside this time of year; typically we are in the Florida Keys appreciating the tropical vegetation. But like an old friend I haven’t seen in a while, I am happy to make a reacquaintance.

For me, the amaryllis (Amaryllis) is not a Christmas bloom but one that takes me through the dead of Winter and early Spring. Collecting them for years and storing them in the basement, I bring them out near Christmas shaking them from their dormancy. After soaking them for a day in warm water, I pot them up waiting for leaves and/or flower shoots to emerge from the end of their apple-sized bulbs. Some fulfill my desires as a fast-growing stalk holding multiple sheathed flowers that emerge soon after planting. Others are slower to awake remaining asleep for months.

Large trumpet-shaped  flowers emerge in red, pink, white and variegated shades. Their stamens and pistils extend forward seeking pollinators but none are around. Their excess in size is counterbalanced by a lack of scent. They persist for a few weeks and then slowly collapse onto themselves forcing me to first remove them and then finally cut the foot-plus long stalks.

In between flowerings, I bring out new plants. First, the mini daffodils (Narcissus Tete-a-Tete) find their way to the kitchen window sill. Crowded into a tiny yellow pot, their cream and green spikes push out ending with a tiny yellow  flower. They last only a few days before needing to be clipped.

Next the primroses (Primula vulgaris) come to visit with white, red, violet, orange and yellow flowers. Their flush and wide green leaves hanging over the pot take up most of the space leaving a small area at their center for protruding buds to emerge and show off. The expression of irises (Iris) and crocuses (Crocus) are more controlled as their squat forms arise from the pot with short stems and leaves. Their larger flowers seem disproportional but that is what creates their glory making me appreciate their unique shapes and forms.

Most persistent is the cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum), which flowers and leafs out throughout the Winter. Its flowers are short-lived though numerous blooms hang tenuously from crooked stems. Its delicate form trembles as the room warms and cools over the course of the day.  Just when I begin to tire of its shape in a month or so, it will go into dormancy, waiting to reemerge next Fall.

A few window boxes of daffodils (Narcissus), grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum), snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), and tulips (Tulipa) sit in the snow outside, waiting for another month to be brought in. Their forced bloom will replace the current ones. And once they fade, I will no longer need indoor flowers as the outdoor ones will have emerged coaxing me outside for days to come.