You Grow Girl™

The paperwhites and my African violets are blooming. It's so nice to see actual flowers blooming when the days are grey and dark as they have been recently. I call it all-day 5:00 because from the moment I wake up in the morning until about 4 or 5:00 it is pretty much the same level of dark outside. The trend has been that the sunnier and brighter it is outside, the colder it is... while the greyer the skies, the warmer the air temperature. I don't understand.

I have been receiving some excellent advice in the forums regarding my cardamom. Sadly I have been so insanely busy, I haven't had a chance to do anything but cut back the dead leaves. I'm hoping to find a spare moment sometime within the next 24 hours. I'm working long days right now in an attempt to complete everything by the 20th at which point I have decided to take a full two weeks off. I haven't done this in a while. Most of my vacations are working vacations. Frankly I don't doubt that this one will be much different, but I am hoping to do some work on this site and maybe even just sit around and draw -- for fun! My other excuse for plant neglect is the result of attempting to find time in the late evenings to work on holiday gifts. I pretty much have all the materials I need, it's just a matter of doing. I have already made 27 herbal bath teas; all individually packaged and sealed. I honestly don't know who I'm giving them to. Once I made 10 it was like I might as well just use everything up... so I did. Davin helped me and we worked on them assembly line fashion while watching a movie last Sunday afternoon. It was a subtitled movie, and since my head was down focussing on important things like not spilling herbs all over my person, or cutting off vital body parts with super sharp scissors, I missed a great deal of the plot. That was only phase one in my master plan so it's looking like a lot of long nights are in store. Actually I have no plan. Every year it is the same. I think "What do I want to make?" Then I buy the supplies -- WAY more supplies than I need for the few people on my list. Then I make tons. Then I decide from there who gets what. I make lists upon lists upon lists but in the end it all comes down to last second impulse.

My old amaryllis ('Red Lion') is currently put away for its dormancy stage. This year I decided to remove it from the pot and store it without soil, because it really needs a fresh start. My new amaryllis is just starting to sprout. It's a miniature variety called 'Pamela'. I really want one with orange flowers but one disappointment I often have with orange flowers is that they are a little too close to the peach side of orange for my liking. My newest bulb is supposed to be a deep red. That's according to the box though and everyone knows you can't always trust the box.