Bulb work II

I completely forgot about one bulb which probably started the frenzy -- an Easter lily. It was given to Fran this past Easter season by her close friend Mickie. It stood about 2-1/2 feet tall at the time, and graced the top of our TV for a couple months. By then the blooms had fallen off and the plant was showing signs of dying off, going to sleep for the season. I put it outside in a pretty shady spot and forgot about it.

Two months ago I noticed a shoot coming out of side of the pot while watering that area of the garden. The shoot grew phenomenally, struggling for light. It wasn't growing vertically either, but at a near 30 degree angle. I relocated the pot to the garden near the patio door where it would get more sunlight. There it continued to put on height. It wasn't too long before the off-vertical shoot was tipping the pot over. I put the pot into a slightly larger clay pot to keep it from falling over.

Then, I noticed the flower buds. They were a complete surprise, coming out in late August. They increased in size over the next few weeks, then one began to open up. It was around this time that I actually got around to repotting the beast into a much larger container, one suitable for indoors as we wanted to protect the plant from the coming winter. It was of course made vertical. Because of the way the first bloom began to open, I nicknamed the plant "Audrey" after the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors"; it's first petal separation reminded me of Audrey's mouth.

Audrey is doing fine right now. Three blooms are open with a fourth nearly so. There are four buds still putting on size. Fran has been removing the yellow pollen covered stamens to keep the interior of the blooms white. I suggested that she try pollinating the flowers by rubbing them on the pistols before discarding them as she had been doing. Maybe next year we'll find more bulbs when we try repotting again.