The Amaryllis That Refused to Die and Came Back a Completely Different Colour

 Right. I need to talk about the amaryllis.

Sit down. Get a brew. Because this one has genuinely had me standing in the living room with my mouth open, which — and Sara will confirm this — is not something that happens very often. I am not an easily surprised man. I have found things in compost heaps. I have pulled engines apart and put them back together and had parts left over. I have grown vegetables of remarkable and occasionally alarming proportions. It takes something fairly special to genuinely stop me in my tracks.

The amaryllis stopped me in my tracks.

Now. A bit of background, because this saga has been going on for two years and it deserves the full story.

Two years ago I got myself an amaryllis bulb. Beautiful things. Enormous trumpets of colour, bold as brass, the sort of flower that doesn't just sit quietly in a pot — it makes an announcement. The plan was simple. I was going to get it going at Christmas, have it in full magnificent bloom over the festive period, and feel very pleased with myself for growing something dramatic and showy in the middle of winter when everything outside is doing its best impression of nothing.

Except it didn't work. It just didn't want to know at Christmas. I did everything right — I gave it warmth, I gave it light, I gave it water, I talked to it probably more than is strictly necessary for a bulb, and it sat there with the energy of a very tired man on a Sunday afternoon. A few leaves came up. Tentatively. Like they weren't entirely sure whether they'd made the right decision. Then they died back. Then nothing.

I'll be honest, I'd almost written it off. Not binned it — I couldn't bring myself to bin it, because I don't do that, and also because I had a feeling it was still alive in there, quietly doing something in its own time at its own pace, on a schedule that it hadn't shared with me. I kept watering it. Every now and again it would send up a couple of leaves, looking quite cheerful, and I'd think here we go — and then it would die back again. Just to keep me guessing. Two years of that. A plant that was apparently working through something personal and wasn't ready to talk about it.

And then.

Oh, and then.

I looked over at it the other day — and I want you to understand, this was not a dramatic moment, I was just walking past — and there was a flower stalk coming up. A proper one. Thick, sturdy, purposeful. The kind of stalk that means business. Up it came, and up it kept coming, and the bud at the top of it got bigger and rounder and more exciting with every single day, and I found myself doing something I haven't done since the children were small — I was checking it every morning. Every morning. Before the kettle had even boiled. Just a quick look. Just to see.

And when it opened —

Creamy yellow. Rich, warm, absolutely gorgeous creamy yellow.

Now here's the thing that has really got me. I am almost positive — almost positive — that that bulb was originally white. I bought it as white. I grew it as white. It was described as white. And yet there it is, in its pot, on its own schedule, after two years of doing absolutely whatever it pleased, producing flowers the colour of clotted cream on a warm scone. Where did that come from? Nobody asked for that. I certainly didn't order it. That bulb made an executive decision and went with it, and I have to say — and this is not something I often say about a plant defying my expectations — it was absolutely right. It looks spectacular.

Sara walked in, looked at it, and said that's beautiful. High praise in this house, that.

I've been looking into it — because of course I have, I can't just enjoy something, I have to understand it — and apparently bulbs can do this. The colour isn't always guaranteed to stay true, especially as the bulb matures and goes through cycles. Something in the growing conditions, the light, the temperature. A warm, dry period, a slow dormancy, a long rest — it can all shift things. Whether that explains a two-year sulk followed by a completely different colour, I genuinely don't know. I'm not sure even the amaryllis knows. I think it just fancied a change.

And you know what? Good for it. If I'd sulked for two years and then come back, I'd have come back different too. I'd probably be wearing a hat.

The lesson here — and there is always a lesson, even from a pot plant — is the same one the allotment teaches me over and over again. Don't give up on something just because it isn't doing what you expected, when you expected it. Sometimes things are just waiting. Sometimes they're building up to something. Sometimes a bulb that did absolutely nothing at Christmas, and sent up a few leaves and then changed its mind seventeen times across two full years, is actually quietly becoming something rather wonderful.

I'm going to let it die back properly this time, keep it warm and dry, and bring it back again next year. Whatever colour it fancies. I'm not arguing with it.

I've learned my lesson.

Keep digging.