AMARYLESS COULD BE #2 or #3 CHRISTMAS FLOWER

They show up in the big box stores of all types as huge bulbs with sickening beautiful advertising. I found this one at a grocery store selling for $6.99. I also saw it in a catalog for $24.99. Anyone can grow one of these and hold it over for many years of bloom. One only needs to pot it with twenty percent of the bulb above ground. Add water and it blooms. Set it outside after last frost. About the first of May give it a tablespoon full of Root Tone when potting and again about the first of June. Water to keep the leaves happy. August cut off leaves, take inside, box it or find a dark basement room and then forget it until September. Sometime in the last half of September bring it back to a sunny window. Once again just add water. Repeat the same as many years as you wish. When pups (new bulbs) form cut them off and grow them too. Easy enough!

Usually sold as Amaryllis but it is actually Hippeastrum. Often they reduce these by 50% after the holidays (but you might not get your choice of colors). You can also grow your own from seed - takes a few years to bloom (at least for me).

http://pinecrestgardenguy.blogspot.com/2011/01/amaryllis-or-hippeastrum-amaryllis-have.html

Lovely bloom, Doc!

Wow, isn't that a gorgeous picture!

To some of us Doc's skill behind the camera is well established.
You rock Doc, lovely shot.

Beautiful pic Doc, I picked up 9 of those boxes at $4.99 ea. I will plant them up put 2 or 3 of them into a nice basket or container of some kind and give them as gifts this year. The ones I have from last year are starting to grow again.

Our HD's boxed Amaryllis and Paper Whites went on sale for $2.50 (reg. $6.98)
early on and sold in no time. They need to do this every year--b/c if they
don't, the boxes just sit there...the Amaryllis and grow inside all crippled.

A week or so before--I had opened all the boxes up so the growing stems would not
be so crooked and crippled--and set them all on a small table.
That was worth the time it took. Customers liked that.....

Mine are all still dormant in the basement....
I read somewhere here that one should re-pot the Amaryllis in fresh soil at this stage.

Your opinions please??? Gita

Doc, that almost looks like a H. papilio hybrid. I have Hippeastrum papilio and the plant doesn't have red or orange in it, more like burgundy or dark rust and green stripes. I should have tried to hybridize it but duh, nothing else was blooming at the time. I just took a closer look at your pix and it is, indeed, Hippeastrum papilio, the butterfly Amaryllis.

This message was edited Jan 10, 2014 7:26 PM