Amaryllis

My amaryllis is blooming! This success comes after years of hit-and-miss results--mostly failures--with getting amaryllis to re-bloom.

OK. You buy an amaryllis. You plant it. It blooms. Then what?
You hide those wide green strappy leaves somewhere behind another plant. Then i take the amaryllis (and all my houseplants) outdoors for the summer.

I have tried:
1) leaving them in their pots, cutting back the foliage in September, taking the bulbs out of the pots, storing them in the basement, and replanting the bulbs in pots in November.

2) same as (1) except leaving the bulbs in their pots.

3) taking the bulbs out of their pots in May, planting the bulbs in the garden, digging them up in September, and letting them rest until November when i re-pot them.

4) same as (3) except repotting them in September.

My neighbor Cliff leaves his potted amaryllis on the window sill 365 days a year. He never cuts the foliage back. He waters it just like he waters all his other plants. The amaryllis reblooms every December. So i decided to proceed on the theory that amaryllis re-bloom when they become root-bound.

I bought 2 potted amaryllis at a plant sale at the library a year and a half ago. Last spring one of them bloomed, and now the other one is blooming. Success! I feel ecstatic.

Sometimes we really have to hunt for a solution in our meditation to find a meditation object that interests us enough to keep us alert and that will also lead us to tranquility.

Does watching the breath work for you?
If not, try hearing meditation.
If that doesn't particularly work, try watching sensations of the body.
If that doesn't work, try loving-kindness meditation.

You get the idea. My book, The Meditative Gardener, offers more than 100 guided meditations, contemplations, and investigations. Surely, you can find something in there that interests the mind sufficiently so that it settles down for a few minutes.

And then joy arises when our meditation blooms :)