Growing Amaryllis for the Holidays

Now’s the time to go find your Holiday Amaryllis. Run to your nearest garden catalogue or hardware store and buy now! I can’t think of a single plant that will repay your investment so well with so little trouble. Cut flowers last for a week and cost anywhere from $12 to $40. You can get a giant amaryllis bulb for about $10 and it will last anywhere from two weeks to two months.

Amaryllis (botanical name Hippeastrum) are originally from South America, so they are warm-weather bulbs. That’s one reason they perform so well in heated indoor conditions. When you choose a bulb, buy the largest one you can find. Larger diameter bulbs will often throw up multiple flowering stalks, two or sometimes three at once. You also have a better chance of getting repeat blooms from the same bulb, where the plant flowers, fades and then sends up a whole new flower stalk again. Amaryllis flowers come in shades of pink, salmon, red and white and all combinations of those colors. Blossoms may be double or single, but are always spectacular.

Growing Instructions
If you buy a naked bulb, pot it in ordinary potting soil in a smallish container. Amaryllis likes being a bit pot-bound, so the pot need only be a couple of inches larger than the bulb diameter. Pot the bulb (roots down!) so the soil comes only up to the crown of the bulb, leaving the upper surface where the leaves will grow sticking out above the soil. You can also grow amaryllis without soil in stones with a bit of water at the base, the way paperwhite narcissus are often grown. To do that, place attractive stones to a depth of three or four inches in your chosen container. With scissors, trim off any roots on the bulb that are brown and dried, but let the roots that are whitish and fleshy remain. Place the Amaryllis bulb, roots down, on top of the stones, then put the remaining stones around the bulb, leaving the top third of the bulb exposed. Finally, add water until the level reaches just below the base of the bulb but no higher. You want the roots to reach the water but not to have the bulb itself sit in the water. If it does, it will rot.

After you have the bulb potted, sit it in a sunny window and water when the soil is dry or when the water level falls below the developing roots, if using the stones method. Depending on the warmth in your house, it may take eight to ten weeks for a new bulb to reach full bloom. After the first flower spikes are spent, cut the stem down to a height of an inch or two above the bulb top and leave any strap-like leaves in place. Continue watering and wait a week or two to see if the bulb may throw up a second round of flowers. If it goes three weeks with no sign of another flowering, your bulb is tired. You can either throw it out, which is what most people do, or try to save it so it will re-bloom the next season.

Getting Amaryllis to Re-bloom
I’ve actually had very good luck fortifying old bulbs and getting them to re-bloom the following year. I won’t deny that a resting amaryllis bulb is not a beautiful plant, so I would only recommend trying this if you have patience and a fair amount of space. After the bulb’s final flowering in January or February, I cut off the remains of any flower stalks and leave all leaves in place, since they are feeding the bulb to build strength for next year. (Note that this only works if you’ve planted the bulb in soil. Bulbs grown in water don’t tend to perform well as re-bloomers.) Stick the plant in an unobtrusive corner with lots of indirect sunlight and water when the soil is dry. As soon as the weather grows warm, I put the pot out onto a porch for the summer and continue to treat it with benign neglect, doing nothing but watering when necessary. All summer the leaves continue to feed the bulb.

In late August or at the first of September, stop watering the bulb completely. The leaves eventually die back, but the bulb is just going into a necessary resting phase. Don’t water the bulb for a two-month rest. During the rest phase, I put my plant in a potting shed and leave it alone. Then in mid-November, I pull out the plant and start watering it again. I water sparsely until the bulb shows signs of life. Then if I’ve treated it well, it will begin flowering again.

Where to Find Amaryllis
You can find a wide assortment of bulbs on line at garden catalogues. Whiteflower Farms has a great variety, with most bulbs priced at $10 or $12. If you want to order the bulb as a planting kit, expect to pay more for the soil and pot. Most hardware stores begin carrying amaryllis, often packaged in boxes, a few weeks before Thanksgiving.