Heirloom Amaryllis

Hello!
I just had to show this pic. I have been after this for about 20 years. My friend gemini_sage had the original and i have finally got them healthy and blooming. I grow it year round inside.

Very pretty...is this a twenty year old bulb?...

I have about 40 amaryllis bulbs from last year that I am going to try to force for flowers this winter...I've had them out side until Labor Day, then brought them in and put them in a dark place...now what do you suggest I do? any ideas? Just wait? ....

Did you let them dry off before putting in a cool dry place? That is what I do, and then pot them up or I have repotted them watered some, put in a dk. cool fruit cellar and when they start to send up either flower stalks or leaves. When you see those, bring them up and put in a sunny window. Water well, but make sure they can drain.
Hope I have explained this so you can understand?

Goodwilly, that is a special one for sure. Nice delicate look to it. Thanks for posting the picture. I grow mine all year around too.

echoes

Well, I just brought them in in their pots and set them on a table in the garage. The leaves are wilting now. I thought I would leave them until January or so and then start watering them again. We repotted them this summer in good sandy potting soil....

Those blooms are beautiful George....
Winnie

Thanks for posting the old amaryllis picture. My Mom had a big milkcan just crammed full with these same bulbs. After summering on the porch, it was brought inside to a dark interior room and always burst into a big display of peach flowers for Thanksgiving. Alas, none of us has a single bulb of it today.

Hello!
The bulb is only about 3 years old and i might be able to get some seed or bulblets if neal is in a good mood LOL for you toxic. I dont know how long it will take to bloom, but if you are interested give me a line. Does anyone by chance know the name?
THANKS! George

Thanks so much for the offer, George, but I better pass. I just have way too many plants and have been giving them away literally by the truck load so I can have more time to take care of both my Mom and my Mother in Law.
Let your bulbs continue to get potbound; it seems they do best that way.
I don't know the name of this old amaryllis, but would love to learn it if anyone knows.
Toxi

I tend to let my bulbs grow as they like and don't enforce a rest period on them. They stay outside in the summer and I just bring them in when it gets a bit colder. I certainly don't cut off the leaves.

These tend to be evergreen. The foliage is always attractive unlike the modern hybrids. I wish I had a pic of the source where mine originally came from. Growing up there was an old lady who lived across the street from us who stayed to herself, but would from time to time leave a bag of apples from her trees on our porch. She died in her late 90's and left her house and everything in it (including her plants) to her niece who was in her 70's. I used to visit her and she showed me the galvanized wash tub overflowing with these amaryllis! It was amazing. I can only imagine how old this variety may be. This was mine before I divided it last January.

If they are the same as this one, they are a species-hippeastrum striatum-from Brazil. Some years they are tall and some years shorter. The flowers are smaller than most hybrids and have lines in the petals (thus striatum). Mine are from my grandmother in Brooklyn. Apparently lots of granmothers in Brooklyn had them!! Mine makes seeds some years and I grew bulbs from the seeds and have given many bulblets and seeds away. I'm very proud of this since I've never grown bulbs from seeds before. I put them outside in summer. I'm letting all my bulbs get cool this year, but I don't cut the leaves or take them out of their pots or keep them in the dark. They find their own rhythm.

here's a better pic taken with a flash.

Very pretty!
:) Donna

George's and mine are the same, and I think they are like yours boojum. Thanks for the great pics. Some years I've had them bloom 2 or 3 times and when they flower outside with more sun the color is deeper. How long did it take yours to bloom from seed? I hand pollinated most of the blooms so I ended up with lots of seed.

Neal.

None have bloomed yet that I know of and it's been almost 2 years. But there may be blooms on some of the ones I gave people. The bulbs keep growing and they must be crowded to bloom. I started with individual pots then moved groups together.

I don't know if this is the right thread or not, but I have a hardy amaryllis growing next to a rose and I need to dig it up and divide it. Is this the right time of year to do this? I am going to an RU so I also wanted to share some of it. Do I take it as a bare root bulb or should I plant it? The RU is Nov 11. Thanks much in advance.

Good question silverfluter. I wish I knew the answer, but I'll tell you what I did.

I bought some H. x johnsonii (an antique hybrid, red with white stripe on petals) which I'm assuming is the one you have, and when they arrived, the roots looked pretty bad: mostly not there, damaged or a bit dried out. They had been grown in soil in zone 7b, and I know they are hardy here, so I decided I'd better plant them.

I had second thoughts about that: I was thinking about the usual kind of fall planted bulbs (tulips, narcissus etc) and the need for cool temps to grow roots, but as I pondered hippeastrums whilst looking at my small collection of the same, I decided that even though they survive the cold, they're really just hardier than the "usual" ones and prefer warmth to grow their roots.


Glad I rethunk it...... I went out and dug my bulbs up to see if they were "doing anything" and found a little bit of rot starting on one of them. So, now I have them sitting in our basement and will pot them up later on, hoping to wait as long as possible as my winter light is not so good and I don't have any space to spare. If they start to grow, I'll pot them up. (actually one of them has pushed a bit of leaf out as we speak.)

So, it may be a bit late now for all this, and your zone is a bit warmer than mine, but I'd advise caution in re-planting them in the soil. Around here, the foliage always dies down and if they do that in your zone, I'd wait to dig them and do it at the first sign of growth next year. If you get as much winter rain as we do, I think it best.

As for taking them to the RU or sharing, I'd go with bare root, unless you have a warm greenhouse/bottom heat to help grow them on, and if they're already dormant, I'd definitely go with that. Just treat them as any other amaryllis you get at a plant shop. Since yours would be just starting to rest, I'd wait to pot them up and start them (or have the recipient hold off on it, but again that depends on whether they're evergreens or not and as I said, they're just growing on or at rest.)

Good luck!

Robert.

Robert, thanks for the response. They are going dormant. The leaves are almost all brown. So I guess I'll wait till spring. There's no time to do anything with them now anyway. I hope I plant them in a better place next time. I have a habit of planting things too close together. Do you have any suggestions for good companion plants for amarylis? Do you know how much water they need, or if they can bloom with just half day sun? I have them right now near a rose so they get watered atleast twice a month. We get very little rain.

Mary Lee

Mary Lee~

Well, you get the best growth with good summer light and a good half day of strong light should work. I have mine amaryllis in pots and as soon as the days warm up, I move them into more sun, even if I have to bring them in at night. In summer when they stay out, they get about 2/3 of the day and they do fine.

They are best kept moist (but *not* wet) as yellowing leaves and root damage is possible in drought. Your half day of sun should help this, so that if they do go "too dry", there will be less damage. A twice a month deep watering and maybe some mulch might be fine. And after all, you've had success with the way you're growing them now, right?

A well amended soil will help with the low watering and the looseness will help them form a good strong root system. They will grow in clayey soils but really do benefit from additional humus.

Once they're established, they are pretty tough, but I try to give my plants the best treatment I can and get the best specimen I can and rely on things such as "drought tolerance" in emergencies only. I learned working in a garden center for 10 years, that people translate "drought tolerant" into "I won't have to water". [Not that you're doing that,
:-) .] I would always fill them in on the details of that when possible. I want "fabulous" plants, not just "nice" ones. I want them to *flourish*, not just survive.

Good luck!

BTW: Are yours the circa1699 Johnson's hybrid that I mentioned? I love those!

Robert.

Robert, I'm not sure what kind they are, though I would really like to know. When they bloom I'll take a picture. I have a picture, but it's not digital and we don't have a scanner. They are in fairly loose soil, because I add 2 double handfuls of compost every spring along with a cup of cornmeal (antifungus) and dry molasses. I have been usiing a fertilizer called 6-2-2, an organic slow release fertilizer made locally. But I'm thinking of switching to another system. I don't know much about it, but there is a nursery here that makes 2 different kinds of compost tea (I think). I have to find out more about it. They may have a website. I will find out.