Amaryllis forcing - soil or just water?

I have a question about amaryllis, too. My mom never puts them in soil when she forces them indoors. She puts them in marbles and keeps water in the pot just up to the roots, no further. Hers always do great, but I can't find anywhere that it says it's okay to do this. I don't know if she adds liquid fertilizer at any time or not. Would that be recommended and advised in this case? Has anyone here grown theirs this way?

Then after they're done she lets them die down, stores them until it's warm enough to plant them outside and puts them in the ground. Then in the fall she digs them up and starts all over again in October.

It's OK to do it like your mother does, you can even put them on a jar, like jelly or mayonaise depending on the size of the bulbs, but make sure the water never touches the bottom. Only leave the fat roots on the bulbs and take the dried ones off. You also may have to , carefully, change the water every so often. I have grown them this way successfully....challenging sometimes when the stalk grows taller and taller, to turn them to the light once or twice a day.

Good luck.

Kylee,

I haven't but I would say if it works, do it the way you know she does it. I bet it would really give her a thrill to have you ask her exactly what she does about furtilizer and everything. In gardening sometimes it's not always the "correct" way that works. LOL

Kelly

I found a couple of cheap amaryllis bulbs and decided to grow in water. we'll see what happens. I am being careful to keep level where it does not touch bulb at all. Started this Monday and changed water today. It was getting smelly.

Well, I'm not sure I should have done this, but I got a couple from Walmart today, for $3.93 each. One is red with white, and the other is a deep red. The deep red one has a HUGE bulb. The red and white one has a new bud coming on. Well, so does the deep red one. Anyway, I took them out of the flimsy plastic pots they had them in, carefully cleaned the soil from the bottom and the roots (and removed the rotted ones...there were many) and put them in the marbles. I've got the roots in water, but not all the way to the bottom. I hope it was okay to do this, but they did not look like they were in a good situation the way it was. They were falling over, but looked healthy. I hope it wasn't the wrong thing to do, to disturb them like that.

Your new amaryllis looks just fine to me! For me, the challenging part of trying to grow bulbs in water is getting them past the initial rooting stage, when the water has to be near enough to the bulb for roots to grow but not so close that it touches & rots the bulb... Your "rescue" amaryllis are already past that stage, and I'll bet they'll do just fine.... better than in their original pots with all those rotted roots, for sure!

Thanks for the encouragement, critterologist! Here's the other one, which is really a deeper red than the picture shows, and that's a 'Papilio' that I got from Brent & Becky's in the pot behind it. That one is in soil, and it came with lots of large roots already, so I'm not watering much, just enough to keep it moist.

Any idea which cultivar these blooming ones are? Their tags didn't say, they just had pictures of each one on them.

question kbaumle, did you put the beads for decoration purposes or is there another reason? I will post a pic of mine in water. I don't have beads in mine and it looks ugly because the water gets cloudy almost immediately. Rocks would certainly improve appearance. Is the papillio in water also?

I use the beads for appearance sake, plus they help stabilize the bulb. The air can get around them fine, as well as the water in the bottom.

No, the Papilio is in soil, with stones in the bottom for drainage. The upper two-thirds of the Papilio is exposed.

I've been looking to try to decide which cultivars these are, and from what I can tell, although I'm not positive, I think the striped one is "Star of Holland." And I think the deep red one is "Red Lion." I'm thinking these are pretty common varieties and since I got them at Walmart, that would sort of make sense that they would carry them. It's so hard to tell the difference between some of them when I look at the pictures in the plant files. For example, "Red Lion" looks a lot like "Liberty." And "Star of Holland" looks like "Baby Star" and "Amoretta."

Water works just fine, but after blooming you'll need to plant it in soil if you plan to save the bulb. I don't think that it will bloom again if you leave it on water all year. And you need to change the water often, there's no way around it.

They won't be in water all year. I'll be planting them outside next spring, once it's warm enough.

I would still move them to a pot and soil after they bloom. I have never left them in water for a long period.

How long will the foliage remain once they're done blooming? Because what I'll probably do after the foliage dies down is let them 'rest' until I can put them in the ground. Or is that too long to let them do that? It's not a problem putting them in soil, I'd just rather not if I can wait until I can put them in the ground.

here is a pix of mine in water. Some roots have started turning brown, but many more nice and white ones have formed.

Strongly suggest to take the brown roots off next time you change the water. It will help keep the water cleaner longer.

will do. thanks

KB, the foliage on my amaryllis doesn't really die down after blooming. I pot them up in soil, and after they bloom I cut the flower stalk off and just treat them like any houseplant until it's warm enough to plant them outside. At the end of the summer, I dig them up and cut back the leaves (but not the roots!), and let them rest for a few weeks before starting again.

A couple of my amaryllis not only got much bigger over the summer, they even produced a little offshoot, which I assume is another bulb beginning to form. Plus, I have 4 or 5 babies that I grew from seed last spring, so in a year or two I should have a nice succession of winter blooms. Yea! :-)

The foliage doesn't really die down unless you force it to. A rare few do it naturally, but otherwise it has to be forced if they are houseplants. You can't keep it in water until you put it outside. I don't think that it will rebloom if you do that because it would be spring before it went outside. But you can put it in a pot inside and then move it outside when it warms up. That's what I do. I just leave it in the pot when it's outside in the flowerbed.

Oh, I didn't mean to leave it in water until then!

Oh, that makes more sense. Then just put them anywhere where they get some light until the are ready to go outside. No problem with that plan.

Thanks for your help! :-) It's amazing how things seem to grow in spite of me... LOL

KB, I'm a little confused, but I wanted to make sure you were going to pot your amaryllis bulb in soil after it was done blooming, not just take it out of the water & let the bare bulb lie around until spring planting... I think it will do much better if you let it continue to grow its leaves over the winter.... just put it anywhere with some light, like Andidandi said.

I did leave my amaryllis in their pots this summer (on the sunny deck), but I think I got better growth last year when I planted them into one of my flower beds.

Prior to reading the things in this thread, I was going to do what my mom does. She does let it dry up and keeps it in a cool place until spring, when she puts it directly in the ground (no pot). It works well for her, and that's how I came to have two of hers - it's because hers multiplied through the summer. But I'll be putting mine in a pot of soil and keeping it here in the dining room where my computer desk is. There is a north window as well as french doors to the east.

Well, hey, if it works for your mom then it works! I thought you were just making up the "let it dry up" method, and I wasn't sure about it since I've always heard to let them keep growing their foliage. If I end up with more amaryllis than space, I'll try your mom's method!

Oh boy, what a mess. My 'Red Lion' that's pictured up there? See the new bud coming on the right side? It opened a couple of days ago, and is just lovely. Or was. I had moved that one to the top of my computer desk and about an hour ago, I was just sitting here and BAM! It toppled over. Icky water on the keyboard and papers I had on the desk. Glass beads everywhere. The heavy glass pot it was in hit my Pentax Optio digital camera and put a nice dent in it by the LCD screen, but it doesn't seem to have hurt the actual display any and the camera still works. The blooms broke off, so now I'm left with just broken foliage. I repotted it in soil, so now I'll just go to the next stage of this amaryllis thing. Not quite how I expected it to go....... :-(

kbaumle, how many days or weeks from the time you put bulb in water til it bloomed? I put mine last week in Oct and the flower stalk is about 9" tall. I was hoping it wouldn't bloom before t/giving, but seems to me that it will open sooner than that.

sorry about the mishap. mine is on the kitchen window ledge, hopefully it will lean against the window.

The ones in water were blooming already when I put them there, so I don't know. I have a papilio that I put in soil Oct. 19th, and it's growing very slowly. The stalks are only 3½-4 inches tall right now.

Oh no! After chat this morning, I thought you & your amaryllis were all set, KB! Sorry to hear it did a Humpty Dumpty on you.

I have a 'Supreme' amaryllis blooming now.... it was outside in a pot on the deck all summer, and just before I was going to pull it up & let it go dormant for a few weeks -- it sent up a bloom stalk! It's next to the wicker chair in my morning room, where I can see it from the kitchen... so pretty!

Here's a picture of it from last winter:

Ohhhhhhhhh, that's SO pretty! I love the ones with picotee edges.

here is pic taken today

WOW!!

Well,
I just got a new Amaryllis bulb and have proceeded to put it in a glass of water so the bottom 1/3 of the bulb is in the water,,,so,,,we'll c

Kelly

Oh, you're not supposed to put the bulb itself in the water, just the roots.

Just the roots? O.K.,,,I will dump some of the water out,,,Thanks Kylee

Yeah, if you have the bulb in the water, you'll get rotting. Not good. LOL.

I dumped out just enough water so that only the roots are immersed,,,hope it grows,,,this is so much easier than potting it.

Kelly

See, that's just the opposite of my take on it. :-) I get annoyed by the need to constantly change the water or monitor it to make sure the level is just right... I'd rather pot it up & water it once a week like everything else!

critter,

This is my first time trying it this way,,,it just may be potted up fairly quickly,,,LOL

Pic taken today. I think it's going to look great on T/giving