It is almost winter and you have received an amaryllis for the holidays! Lucky you. But, in truth, once these have bloomed most people toss them – hopefully into the compost and not the garbage!
In August my lovely grandsons visited just as my amaryllis suddenly popped into bloom for a second time. What a treat. The plants, blooming outside, were as tall as a three-year-old – pretty tall for a flower! They bloomed early because after their dormant period in my greenhouse, I tipped the pots on their sides for a few months and suddenly new leaves started to emerge in July, so I stood the pots back up and started watering them again.
Amaryllis come in pink, white, red and variegated colours but basically it is the Christmas colours of red and white that make them so popular, as well as the fact that they are ready to bloom when the bulb is bought…. hardly any work at all for the gardener.
This bulb produced an unusual pinky-red colour and the buds bloomed from New Years until well into February.
MORE OF A GOOD THING
If you decide to keep your newly received or not-even-in-bloom-yet amaryllis for a second or even third year like I accidentally did, Trudi and her husband from the Tulip Farm in Red Deer Alberta have a few suggestions posted at their booth in the Old Strathcona Farmers Market in Edmonton. These are great ideas for getting Amaryllis to bloom for more than a single season, but remember all you are trying to do is build a new flower bud inside the bulb, so keep in mind that the more leaves your plant produces, the more blooms you will have! (But fear not, these plants will almost always bloom the first season you buy them because they have the flower bud already tucked inside their gigantic bulb.)
The bigger the bulb you start with, the more large blooming stems and the more flowers per stalk. Amaryllis flowers are also great as cut flowers so if you tire of the plant you can move it into a cool area and simply clip and keep the blooms in water.
TIPS FROM TRUDI (for bringing Amaryllis into bloom again – with additions in Italics by me)
- After blooming reduce watering, put the container in a cool room, and leave the leaves on it so it can grow new flower buds and leaves. Water sparsely! In Qualicum Beach, I brought my old bulbs out to my greenhouse to keep growing over winter and then by May I tipped the pots on their side so they wouldn’t accidentally get watered as I tended my other greenhouse plants. I let the leaves dry out gradually as they were no longer watered but once I saw a leaf emerge in late July, I tipped the pots back up and watered them again.
- In May, when frost risk is gone, take the bulb outside and plant it in a sunny spot in the ground or in a big planter covering only 1/4 of the bulb. It is important initially as well as later to plant the bulb shallow like this so that it doesn’t rot in wet soil. If you don’t have a greenhouse you may follow my lead after they bloom: I just bring them out to my partially heated garage where the light from a south window keeps them alive. But the air is cool and the heater only comes on when it is near freezing. This is the same place I grow my lemons in pots.
- Fertilize and water regularly while they are actively growing but don’t overwater. I simply fertilize when it has leaves – mainly before May/June.
- Bulbs will rejuvenate for new season and make new clusters of blooms inside their bulbs while they are growing in summer. In the greenhouse example above they grew new flower buds between February and May, before I tipped them over and let the leaves dry back.
- Take the bulb out of the ground at the end of August, (or like me, tip the pot back up once new leaves start to emerge.) If keeping the plant green and growing until August, make sure to let it dry on the deck with leaves still on.
- When totally dried out, cut off dead leaves and store the bulb dry and cool for 10 weeks so the leaves dry and the bulb rests. (Luckily I have a root cellar to do this!)
- Pot up again (or leave in its original pot) and bring plant into living room for flowering!
WHERE TO GET BULBS
Edmonton is the main market for the Tulip Farm, because it is so busy, but in fact they do sell forced bulbs of all kinds in Red Deer as well as Calgary. Their Amaryllis bulbs, ordered directly from Holland, are sold in Calgary through the Calgary Farmer’s Market South and more specifically at the Innisfail Growers stall at the Calgary Farmer’s Market. If you have seen their fantastic tulips in spring you are lucky because in fact they are often sold-out by mid-Thursday or early Friday and most buyers are forced to buy lesser bulbs at grocery stores or garden centres.
But back to Amaryllis, they are usually available as bare bulbs everywhere from garden centres to hardware stores at this time of year. Buy them, plant them, enjoy them.
Cluster Amaryllis bought from the Tulip Farm, were already emerging this week. Lucky me.
SOMETHING NEW
The tulip farm has something new so of course I had to buy a pot of their “cluster amaryllis” to force into bloom this year. I haven’t tried these before but apparently they produce multi-stems of blooms from each bulb and are brought in bare-root directly from Holland to pot and sell. Unlike the regular single-to-three stemmed, large flowered Amaryllis, the cluster amaryllis from the Tulip Farm have many more flowers than most of the bigger amaryllis but can’t be allowed to dry out before potting so are not generally available in bins at hardware stores. When I bought them last weekend, they were well up out of the ground in moist soil so I am sure they will be in bloom soon.
Bulbs bought at hardware stores can be quickly potted into a fast draining soil mix like ProMixHP. Water sparingly (only when it dries out) and leave 1/4 of the bulb sticking out of the soil.
SOIL
I advise gardeners to use any garden mix they like but I usually have PromixHp on hand so I use that, making sure to keep at least 1/4 of the bulb out of the soil and minimizing the watering during the flowering cycle. The Hp means high porosity so the soil stays drier than with other soil mixtures. I have some fantastic high intensity growlights on a timer for 12 hours daily so I just pot up my bulbs and put them under lights until they grow and start to show colour on the flower buds. (I got my high intensity growlight from Veseys Seeds but there are likely cheaper ones available.)
Once the flower buds emerge and start changing colour I don’t want to miss a moment of the bloom so I bring them into my kitchen or living room and watch the blooms splash out their fabulous display of blooms. If they are very tall, I will prop them up with a branch collected from my garden and some raffia ribbon affixed to the branch, to keep them upright.
