Today is April 8th and my amaryllis is just blooming.  Call it a miracle, as it was all but ignored after it bloomed last year.  Maybe that’s the secret:  neglect.  Here’s what I did and didn’t do.  I potted it in a one gallon container in potting soil last winter and placed it on an East facing windowsill.  Sunlight poured in for a few hours and then vanished in the afternoon.  Watered, usually.  Fertilized, maybe once?  It bloomed gloriously last April, tall and bursting with color.  After the flower faded I cut off the stalk and watered it somewhat throughout the summer.  Them came the neglect.  Maybe the pot had been knocked over, it was only half filled with dirt.  The watering stopped.  It just sat on the windowsill, in our rather cool house, dormant.  Once in a while I would look at it and think ‘if it gets squishy, I’m tossing it out’, but it remained firm.  I really held no hope for it,  as it appeared dry and dead.  Perhaps in February I noticed the first little shoot of green pushing out.  Time to water!   I never did replace the soil, but did water regularly as the leaves grew tall  and pointed.  In mid-March, partly camouflaged, I noticed a flower stalk sneaking past the leaves.  O frabjous day, callooh, callay!  I was full of surprise and delight.  And now, April 8th, the flower is just opening, a deep burgundy red.  Hurray!  Pictures forthcoming.