Minerva

I put my amaryllis bulbs in their pots outside for the summer and when I went to put them away to go dormant I saw Minerva was shooting a flower stem...It has since bloomed and it has 7 flowers on the one stem....BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!

Most Hippeastrum will get on their normal blooming schedule after you grow them properly. If you want it to go dormant make sure you don't cut the leaves off, let them yellow naturally, for some reason a lot of people like to cut off the leaves to the neck of the bulb and this probably the most harm you can do next to overwatering!


I would love to see pictures :)

Leaving the leaves on until they have turned yellow is very important as the sugars and the water for supporting the bulb are there. Cutting off early is starving the bulb.

well I didn't cut off the leaves....Just sat the pots in the basement to die off....

I have many that are still green but are so tall they are falling over. YOur advise is to just leave them until they turn yellow and fall off themselves? Elaine

Yep, or maybe until an easy tug allows them to be removed. Broken off leaves do not have to be kept though, Green or yellow.

I would stake the leaves up, if you cut the leaves down you're potentially weakening the bulb and eventually it may not bloom until you do let it strengthen itself back up.

Thank you and I will stake them up. Elaine

You're welcome :) I'm glad I could help, a lot of people don't realize that cutting the leaves back can be harmful!


Josh

I don't know what the normal blooming season is, because Minerva is the first Amaryllis we have ever grown. We bought the bulb in late 2008 and followed the instructions given in critter's Amaryllis 101 article and had this on February 1 of 2009

Then, when the flowers expired, we again followed the info given by critter's Amaryllis 101, Part 2.
Well, we thought the plant was not going to do anything more, just like so many of our orchids! Nice leaves, but nothing else.
Then, much to our surprise, in early May (just about my birthday!) it began to raise a flower stalk.
This is what we had on 27 May this year.
You will note that we only had 1 stalk this year, whereas we had 2 in 2009. However, we also seem to have a bulblet, because there is a second set of leaves that emerged at the side of the main bulb!
Today, I bought a bulb of Mary Lou to add a "reverse" to Minerve.
Do these become addictive?

Oh yes they do!!!!

I just bought "Mary Lou"

I just bought and potted up "Black Pearl" and "Blossom Peacock" yesterday. I cannot wait to see them in bloom. I have been unable to find "critter's Amaryllis 101, Part 2." on DG. Was it somewhere else, I am using http://www.amaryllis.com/pac.htm for my planting instructions. And will probably move outdoors when the milder weather comes.

Critter's Amaryllis 101 article is here:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/364/
The Part 2 article is here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/468/