BONNIES GARDEN--Amaryllis Care Every year at Christmas, my great-aunt and uncle would come over for dinner. We’d give them a Whitman sampler. They’d give us an amaryllis. My mother would place it on a table in front of the picture window. It would bloom with gorgeous red flowers. When it was done blooming, my mother would put it in a spare bedroom and, eventually, throw it away because it never bloomed again. When I first got married, I’d do the same thing—get a beautiful amaryllis and throw it away when it was finished blooming. Then I learned how to keep them from year to year. There are truly few things lovelier than an amaryllis in full bloom. Here’s what I do to grow mine. I buy the largest size bulb for the variety. Larger bulbs mean bigger -- and more -- flowers. Keep in mind that miniature and double-flowered varieties usually have smaller sized bulbs. I make sure the bulb has the same firmness and feel of a good onion. I pot the bulb with one to one and a half inches of soil surrounding and with the top third of the bulb exposed. I water well, then let it dry almost completely before watering again. Amaryllis stems will lean strongly towards the light so I place it in a sunny window and give the pot a quarter turn every few days to keep the stem straight. Amaryllis will usually take from five to eight weeks to bloom, although you can control, to some extent, how fast your amaryllis will bloom with temperature. If the bulb is not moving fast enough, I water with lukewarm (not hot) water and place it in a warm room. If it is moving too fast, I’ll place it in a cooler room. These measures can add or subtract a week or so to the total blooming time. I have about twenty amaryllis, because I learned the secret to blooming them again. After my amaryllis finishes blooming, I remove the spent flower stalks but allow any leaves that have begun to sprout to remain. I keep the plant watered and in a sunny window and begin feeding with a good houseplant fertilizer according to the directions on the package. When warm weather arrives, usually May 1 here, I put the pots outside for the summer, remembering to keep them watered and fed. Now I know I’m going to forget to feed it once it’s outdoors, so I use a little Osmocote. Just before the first frost, usually mid to end October, I bring them all inside, cut the leaves all the way back, leaving a one inch stubble and allow the pots to go dry all the way to the bottom. Once the soil is bone dry, I store the bulbs in their pots in a cool, dark, dry place for 8 to 10 weeks. An attic, basement, or attached garage is good as long as they don’t get below freezing. Since some varieties will flower more quickly than others, I check on the bulbs after eight weeks and bring out any that have the fat little tip of a new flower shoot beginning to show. Otherwise I leave them to rest another two weeks. The normal blooming time for an amaryllis (after the first year) is somewhere between February and May. After another two weeks, I’ll bring more out and leave a few for another week or two. That way I’ll have a succession of bloom all the way till spring. To bloom your bulb by Christmas, you need to bring the bulb into dormancy by the end of August. Finding a cool, dark, and dry place then can be difficult because attics, basements and attached garages are still hot from summer heat. An unused refrigerator is your best bet. However, because you’re dealing with a living plant, they will bloom on their own time-table—not yours. And just to be botanically correct, the real name of what we call ‘amaryllis’ is ‘hippeastrum.’ The only true amaryllis is the amaryllis belladonna, which is not reliably winter-hardy here. The amaryllis family gives us many of our most beautiful bulbs, however. Daffodils are in the amaryllis family, as is the hippeastrum, of course, and the lycoris (also known as Naked Ladies, Surprise Lilies, or Spider Lilies.)
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:40:19 +0000