Haste Makes Waste

It seems to be a pretty easy winter so far in this part of Ontario.  It's been cold - but the storms are either to the north or south of us.  The warm and cold systems usually collide several times in January giving us snowfall.  This year they're running parallel to each other - not great for so many folks in the US to the south and for Canadians further north.  

With the colder weather Bart has been getting lots of use of his new sweater for which he seems remarkably ungrateful. Could almost see the smile on his face as he realized that this would be a naked-dog-walk-day which always makes him infinitely happier. 

Pretty grasses down the street:

Amazing how close in colour this vine is to the tree trunk:

Just noticed that little black bit stuck in the tree?  What on earth is it?  Almost looks like a wine cap.

Which brings me to the title of this post.  Last fall I did a rather poor garden tidy-up.  With the ash tree coming down and waiting for ice-storm repair, my heart just wasn't in the final stages of gardening for the year.  I just dumped tender potted plants into the garage - including my Amaryllis bulbs.

Kevin had given me a beautiful pot of three of varying heights and colour arranged by Forget-Me-Not - a very fancy florist - here in Oakville for Valentine's Day.  I had had great success getting Amaryllis to rebloom last year.  So I figured I would be able to enjoy this treasure again this year.  I combined it and my first re-bloomer from last year, plus three end-of-season bulbs from Mum. Today was the day (long overdue) to bring them into the house and coax them back into bloom.

This is when the sad death-march music begins.  Because I discovered much to my shame I should have looked behind the magic curtain to see how this beautiful arrangement was put together:

The beautiful copper pot:

The plastic gizmo that kept the pot from being soaked:
In my defence, I thought that the bulbs where planted in this plastic gizmo and that it had drainage holes.

Oh no.  Each bulb was in its own pot:

There was pretty moss on top to hide the mechanics:

The pots were stapled together:
Now this is the sad part.  While our garage is part of our house, it gets its heat by association rather than by direct vents. And, I discovered 2/3 of these glorious bulbs, each the size of a good pot-roast were frozen.

These bulbs, though closer to the garage door, were not.  It would seem that the difference was drainage.

So I repotted the one non-frozen Amaryllis in a big-boy pot and positioned them all on the light table. Fingers crossed that I'll begin to see some life soon and I won't be completely punished for not taking better care of them.

Here's a shot from last year's rebloomer - sitting gloriously in the middle of what looks like the morning after the night before.  Lesson learned - should I ever wish to keep something from any sort of arrangement I must take it apart.  And, as tired as I am in the fall, I need to remember how I was rewarded by taking a little extra time at the end of 2013 garden's for last winter's spectacular blooms.