We had a lovely present from my brother, Derrick and his partner Lyn at Christmas, a big fat Amaryllis. We potted it up and waited. It seemed a long wait but suddenly there were signs of growth, buds started opening looking like little green tongues sticking out. Once they reached about 4 inches in height a flowering stem burst upwards growing at a great rate. It was noticeably taller each day and the bud at its topmost point plumped up until it reached about 18 inches. It then stopped adding any growth to the stem length and instead the bud expanded. Until.
The deepest red petals started to appear, almost black.
After a few days the flowers were huge, as wide as a saucer and each petal developed the texture of the softest most luxurious velvet.
We positioned them near some of my paintings as the petals matched colours in the paintings. these abstracts were based on a special rock structure on a beach in North Wales, where the darkest grey rock had extrusions of red forced into them.
At their peak the four flowers that topped the stem looked far too heavy. It seemed as if the stem would bend or snap at any moment. The contrast between the yellow and red became intense.
And now for one final set of photos – the bloom at its best.
greenbenchramblings 
4 replies on “The Blooming of a Big Bulb”
They’re such glorious flowers, and bring such joy.
This amaryllis has the most striking red color of any I’ve ever seen. Would you know it’s name? I like your painting also. I used to paint abstracts too.
Sorry we got it just as a mystery bulb so the wonderful colour was just luck. Malc
Nature produces some of the most wondrous colours, thanks for sharing these pictures, I feel inspired