Friday, December 08, 2006

Amaryllis

We had a 50 degree day on Wednesday, so I took advantage of the afternoon warmth to pot up my amaryllis bulbs. I try to bring mine back each year and have been experimenting with different ways of nourishing them in the summer. Most of the literature says they like to be pot bound, but I often will take some out of their pots and let them develop roots in the field in the summer. It wasn’t until last spring that I decided to keep a record.

So now each bulb has a number and is being carefully monitored for its growth. As you can see from the picture #4 is the biggest. This is because it is the one I purchased new this year. The others are pitifully small because they were taken as offshoots from other bulbs in years past. I am hoping to grow them into real bulbs.

Last year only #5, 8 and 9 produced flowers and then not until mid March. I wonder what this winter will bring.

In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions for successful feeding, watering and summer field growing options, I am all ears.
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2 comments:

Sigruns German Garden said...

I hope, they grow quick and without deseases.

Sigrun

El said...

I used to be an amaryllis grower. My trick was I'd plant them out in the garden in spring in a shady spot, then dig them up in September (I lived in Minnesota at the time, so 9/15 was the usual first frost), pot them up, stick them in the basement wine cellar unwatered and unloved for 2-3 months, then pull them out and put them in a sunny-ish spot. They'd reliably all be blooming in Jan-Feb.

I don't have many indoor plants nowadays; lost most of them in the move down here. But I did love amaryllis; my oldest one was probably 10 years old. And yes, they got successively larger.