My amaryllis broke so I made a cut flower

I hate disappointment, which probably sounds odd because its not an emotion anybody exactly enjoys, but I really do not cope with it well.  The other day a very sad thing happened that brought with it considerable disappointment and really really spoilt my day.  I came home from work, and was in a really good mood, went into the living room while filling in the family on my day, and stopped short.  There, on the floor, by my dogwood christmas tree was my prized amaryllis that had been in full beautiful bloom and at absolute peak perfection.  Only it was in pieces.  If it was acceptable to cry over a plant I would have.  Anybody who read my previous amaryllis post will know just how besotted with it I was.  How I didn't end up carrying it around showing it to people I don't know.  Ok, I admit, I did do that a little.

You can see the major bend in the stem like an elbow that is not meant
to be there.  The flowers also took a beating getting to the floor so they are a little bruised

My beautifully big bud hanging, lifeless

The damage was, alas, severe.  The flowering stem had bent in two places and while still attached, was well beyond working functionality.  The second unopened bud, and the part that killed me the most, not to mention the amaryllis, had clean snapped through and was dangling by a fleshy thread.
To begin with we just couldn't understand how it had gone from being happy as larry on the sideboard to on the floor.  The blame was squarely placed on the cat getting up and barraging about on the sideboard like she does sometimes.  Luckily for it, before skinning commenced we realised that maybe it had, with four whopping flowers, become top heavy and collapsed.  Maybe this is why it needs a stem as thick as a baby's arm!  And still manages to fall over.  The situation was probably not helped by the mother rather excessively watering it.  It virtually had a bath.  The mixture of unstable roots and poor albeit beautiful design I feel did it in.  The motto of this story is stake amaryllis.
To begin with, apart from picking it up off the floor I just couldn't bare to deal with the wreckage.  But then the mother came home and that lady never lets a plant go without a fight.  Her weapon of choice?  Cello-tape.  She can perform miracles with the stuff.  Between us we held the flowering stem back upright and cello-taped copiously the bends to stabalise and provide support whilst also joining in the stick thats been holding up an orchid for some time.  This method has in the past saved a crooked hazel sapling after my father accidentally stomped on it once, so there is method behind the madness.  However, it did not save the flower which gently wilted and died over the next few days but ensured we got to enjoy it upright while it did.

Despite major reconstructive surgery the flowers rapidly wilted

The cello-tape joinery

The bud stem was in my opinion, done for.  But then I remembered reading that you could have amaryllis as cut flowers.  Straight onto the internet I went to check how to care for your cut flower.  It turns out that baby arm of a stem is completely hollow and filled with water.  The internet recommended that I never let my stem be empty of water, filling it up and wedging cotton wool in the end if it ever had to be taken out of water.  Great to know that when the broken bud has at this point spent a good few hours empty and dry.  Nevertheless we snapped that final fleshy tendril and stuck it in a vase.  I thought the bud may not be developed enough to come out but over the next few days it did indeed flower.  I was thrilled.  The four flowers never opened as wide as they did on the plant and where therefore not as impressive, definitely not helped by the rather short stem that had been left attached to the flower after the accident, but I loved them anyway.  Any kind of flowering was better than just throwing the bud away.

The second bud beginning to flower from its new location in a vase

So while we didn't completely manage to reverse disaster, we did salvage something from the wreckage, and learnt that my other amaryllis will need support and a firm stabalising pot to sit in to prevent this happening again.  I have read that amaryllis bulbs can be kept for future years but that feeding should start while the bulb is still flowering.  Clearly this happened slightly earlier than I was planning so I never actually managed to feed it but my task now is to read up on how to care for an amaryllis for the rest of the year while I wait my next showing.  

The second bud flowered to a certain extent but seemed to struggle with hoisting the flowers into the correct position and opening fully