Springtime means - Amaryllis time!
By balcony
9 comments
Springtime means – Amaryllis time!
Yes, my Amaryllis are once again in flower & have been for the whole of March this year! I have a wonderful array of these lovely flowers on our living room table – just like other years!
Here is a photo where you can see many in flower all at the same time!
There may be 17 – 18 pots of bulbs in this photo! As they go over I remove them from the table & put them back in the various windows they came from – only now I have problems – there are now too many!!!
You’d think if I put them back where they came from then they would still occupy the same space – that would be true – if I hadn’t repotted them all! I spent a lot of time during February doing just that!
The result is I’ve now got a lot more pots but nowhere to put them! In fact I didn’t have enough pots & most offshoots have had to go in one pot to fatten up for flowering in coming years!
I now have nearly as many pots full of little offshoots fattening up as I have of flowering bulbs!
One thing that really surprised me was the fact that a lot of the bulbs were still living in their pots with soil from the allotment. I’d dug them up three years ago after they spent their first summer after flowering on the allotment. At the time I had no compost to put in the pots & so I used the allotment soil as a temporary measure till I could buy some more compost – it now seems I forgot completely about them.
The following two years they have not been moved from their pots as I discovered on digging them up from the soil that a lot of the bulbs had become infested with grubs of the ‘Narcissus Fly’. These grubs had eaten out the heart of the bulbs & I had to dispose of them. The next two years they stayed in their pots when I took them down to the allotment for the summer.
Then last summer I decided it was about time they were repotted as many of the pots were full to overflowing
with offshoots & the bulbs were only producing one flowering stem with just 2 flowers when a well fed bulb can produce two flowering stems with between 4 & 6 flowers on each one!
Clearly they were struggling which made me decide they needed repotting. That they flowered at all is testimony to how much good it did to feed them with tomato fertilizer during the summers. I also use a general fertiliser for the first couple of months after flowering while the leaves are growing. Only during the 3 summer months do I feed them with the tomato feed.
Sorry this blog is not so coherent as my usual blogs. This blog set out to showcase the bulbs that are presently in flower but deviated a little along the way! The photos are not as closely linked to the text as I normally put them. In a week or two I’ll write another blog where I show the steps I took to repot them – from removing them from their pots to potting them up in fresh compost. I’ll also try to give those that are interested in growing them on for future enjoyment some instructions/tips on how to do just that.
30 Mar, 2014
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Comments
Wow Balcony, they are gorgeous, I just throw mine away after flowering eek.
30 Mar, 2014
Fantastic display. How long does it take for the offsets to reach flowering size? We had the original about 35 years ago and it flowered for years, but when the central bulb died and we replanted the offsets so the plant doesn't owe us anything but it would be nice if we could get it going again. All I get now are a few measly leaves even though i do feed it (when I remember...)
30 Mar, 2014
They all look gorgeous Balcony, I'm pleased to say that I've managed to have some flowers this year instead of just leaves, I treated myself to a new bulb after xmas, it was a vivid red and had 3 blooms, then I got a freebie basket from the Spalding Bulb Co. it has 5 bulbs in the basket and all are white, been flowering for weeks, I will look out for your blog in the hopes that I can keep them all for next year........
30 Mar, 2014
I'm always pleased to hear your comments! :-))
YDD: I'm surprised at you throwing them away after flowering! They are as easy as a Daffodil to grow - with the exception that you can't grow them outside in the UK! Practically any bulb can be kept growing for future enjoyment & Amaryllis couldn't possibly be easier! I have sooo many I don't know what to do with them any longer! I dread to think what I'm going to do with them come October!!!
SB: I'm pleased for you that you managed to get yours to flower again this year! :-)) Their natural period of flowering is probably about Easter but they are fairly easy to manipulate to get them to flower at different times.
Steragram, it surprises me that you can't get the offshoots to grow on! I have so many bulbs because the offshoots grow on to flowering size over a couple of years. They make new flowering bulbs in the same way as Daffodils do.
Lincalass, I'm so pleased that your bulbs have been flowering for such a long time! I once had a white one but it proved to be a shy flowerer. In the years I had it it only flowered 2 or 3 times before disintegrating into many smaller bulbs all of which I seem to have lost as no bulb I have is pure white, I have some that are white but with red veining. These are my favourites because each one is different, I had at least 4 different ones all flowering at the same time but they were different one from another.
In the next week or two I'll be making up a new blog on how to look after them. A dozen or more of mine have now finished flowering & I will grow them on so they flower again next year.
1 Apr, 2014
I also like 'Pinky' very much! This is the 2nd year it has flowered for me & I also have some of its baby bulbs fattening up top flower in a couple of years time!
Just yesterday I posted another blog on Amaryllis only this time it is about my latest plants from seed.
If I get time I'll finish the other blog I promised about growing them on for other years.
30 Apr, 2014
Are you supposed to detach the offshoots? I have left mine with the parent so maybe that's why they don't seem to come to anything.
1 May, 2014
Well, it would be better to remove them & pot them up separately as they can't grow properly sharing the same pot as the mother bulb. After all they are all trying to get food & light from the same pot! Also they have no physical room for development. Have another look at photo 5 where you will see that the bulbs are mostly very crowded & that is why they have only produced one scape (flower stem) with only two flowers on them. These bulbs, if well fed & looked after, can easily produce between two & three scapes each with between 4 & 6 flowers on them!
Depending on the size of the offshoots they can take up to 3 years to reach flowering size. But they propagate the same as Daffodils only Daffs need less time to reach flowering size, especially from offshoots.
2 May, 2014
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they are a lovely plant.
I wonder how many end up in the bin after they have flowered.
I have mine on the go from 3 yrs ago now. Though one likes flowering in may.
30 Mar, 2014