I haven’t been doing a lot of gardening lately other than ogling my lemons, watching birds, and watching my potted amaryllis grow several inches a day on the kitchen windowsill. Its plump buds are just beginning to open. It was an ‘Apple Blossom’, plucked from the bottom of a nearly empty bin in the plumbing aisle at Emigh Hardware.

A couple years ago, I bought an ‘Apple Blossom’ amaryllis bulb for an aunt at Christmas. At first I thought, “Is this a lame gift? Am I projecting my gardening thing on her?” But then she raved about how it grew, and bloomed, and had several beautiful flowers. That left me wondering why I didn’t buy one for myself. So this year I did. Oh, I thought about gifting it because who wouldn’t want a fabulous amaryllis bulb for Christmas, right? Selfishness… and the rationalization that I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and die an amaryllis virgin… won in the end and I kept it for myself. And, hey, why hasn’t anyone ever given me an amaryllis bulb for Christmas? Now who’s selfish?

There isn’t a lot to do in the garden right now except two important things– pruning my roses and deciduous trees and applying dormant spray to my fruit trees. Not very glamorous, but both must be done. I sort of putzed on the winter veggie garden except for planting a bit lettuce and herbs and chard. I’m kind of sorry because I do enjoy watching my little dogs eat snap peas right off the vine, the little dorks.

I’ve also been experiencing some blog template weirdness and have been perusing the help boards a lot lately. I am trying to add a third column to my blog and in doing so, nuked some of the changes I had made to my template. Oh, I backed it up, but that doesn’t save the stuff in the sidebar. My header is having issues too, so I took it down until I can get the third column up and running. Then I’ll put a header back and do all sorts of other wonderful widgety, hacky stuff. Blogging is too fun. I might be starting a Dreamweaver class this month, so watch out for a revamped, revitalized, reborn gardening website as well in the coming year.