Our family's amaryllis contest - questions.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, this Thanksgiving, my husband’s aunt gave each seperate household an amaryllis to grow. Apparently, we’re having a contest to see who can grow the tallest one by Christmas - extra points if it blooms.

They’re just those little boxed kits - they come with a little plastic pot, soil, and an amaryllis bulb. Franky, I’m just pleased it wasn’t bumped or bruised to the point of uselessness. But what the hey, this is just for fun, right? :smiley:

So anyway, I planted mine the moment we got home. The game is on, friends. The aunt already had hers planted, after all. (Cheater! But who am I to complain, this was all free for me.) Hers was just planted that day, so I think she only got a couple of hours on us. No big deal. Anyway.

I’ve never grown an amaryllis before (or… any plants before), and this is all new to me. I looked up a few things, and I think we’re doing okay. I drilled some holes in the bottom of the plastic pot and put it on a plate to drain, and only water it about once a week.

A week after I planted it, it looked like this. When I saw that it was sprouting, I added some liquid fertilizer in the dose recommended on the package. So now, it’s been what? Two and a half weeks later - it looks like this.

Can anyone tell me, just from the pictures, if it’s coming along normally - is it growing quickly? Or slowly? Does anyone think we might be lucky enough to get a bloom for Christmas? It’s about 5.5" tall in that last picture. We give it lots of light, very few waterings, and now we use the fertilizer, but only when we water it.

Is there anything else we could be doing to it to encourage it to grow and/or bloom? We get to keep them afterward, so I will repot it into a clay pot (the contest states we must use the plastic pot to grow it - ugh). Right now, though, my primary concern is the contest :wink: Is there anything I should avoid doing to it? Anything we should be doing? I want to win!

I don’t even know what we win if we win, but I still want to win! :smiley:

2

:smack: :smack: :smack:

The second picture is supposed to look like this!!

grumble grumble

The pictures are on top of each other in the file listing. I need some freakin’ sleep.

3

It’s fine :wink:

I have two growing right now. One of the stems is getting close to 3 feet tall and it hasn’t bloomed yet. I did not grow mine in potting soil, instead I put both of mine in a bulb vase and they are doing fine.

Just keep it moist.

4

Goodness, if that second photo in your OP had been the correct one, I’d have pegged you as hands-down winner of the contest! :smiley:

Your Amaryllis looks just fine, though.

5

I was just thinking “I should get off the damn computer and go start my amaryllis bulbs” when I came across your post.

For this year, you’re good. (Did like the first version of the second picture – thought “Damn! I’ve never gotten one to dress up before!”)

For the future – after it blooms, cut off the stem with the flowers but leave the leaves on. Keep watering it once a week all spring and all summer. Right around Labor Day, stop watering it and let the leaves die back. At Thanksgiving (or a few weeks later, if you have problems with procrastination), pot it up again in some new dirt (I use straight compost) and start watering it again – and son-of-a-gun, ain’t-nature-grand, it will bloom again. You do have to keep the leaves going all spring and summer, though, since that’s how the bulb gets the food to create the new bloom.

I’ve got eight or ten bulbs at this point, some of them dating back 12 or 15 years. And now I’ve got to get off the damn computer and go start them.

6

I bought one of the kits at Target a few days ago and have started mine. I’m sure we won’t get anything before Chrsitmas, but what the hell. Anyway, the pot is ceramic but dosen’t have any holes in it. In my planting abandon I didn’t think to put any rocks in the bottom or anything - not included with the kit, you see, and evidently I am given to temporary stupidity. Should I disturb the thing to put rocks on the bottom so it can drain? Will that do more harm than good? I do, BTW, have a black thumb and have no expectations of anything but a quick death for poor Mr. Amaryllis.

7

My mom got this one from a neighbor. (She got it on her birthday, but I think it’s meant to be a Chirstmas present.) It’s still in a glass vase right now; the water is changed once a week. The planting instructions insinuate that it needs to be planted outside; I think we’ll just find a nice pot for it this week.

8

I saw one of those kits last night at the store. Are they indoor or outdoor plants? Do they need a lot of light? Are they hard to take care of?

9

Thanks for the responses, everyone. Seems like my little amaryllis is doing fine. Yay :smiley: It’s starting to grow *very * fast - it’s grown about an inch since yesterday.

Anyway, for those asking if it’s indoor/outdoor, I was under the impression that it’s both? Does anyone know, do they grow bigger if they are planted outside? Does the pot stunt their growth in any way?

I am finding taking care of this plant to be pretty easy. So far, at least. It needs little watering, and lots of light. No problem for me. I picked up some fertilizer at a Fred Meyer, which was very cheap, and you only need a tsp per gallon. Mine is growing like a weed right now. I have been getting in the mindset that I’d actually have to work to kill it! However, my husband called his father to see how his amaryllis was doing, just to compare, and it seems his brother has over-watered it, and it’s not growing very much - if at all. His brother watered it every day. I think that’s a pretty big no-no.

I’m really getting into this contest. I’m enjoying the balancing act of taking care of a plant. Keeping the soil just moist, not soaked, making sure it gets sufficient light, drainage, and food. It’s like a little, slow-growing baby to me now. I just may get another plant. And maybe another.

I had no idea plants could be so fascinating :smiley:

10

Can I ask why these are Christmassy plants? Seems to me you can have it blooming pretty much any time you’d like, if you care for it the right way, yet I know quite a few people who grow them specifically for Christmas blooms.

Apart from “They’re pretty flowers, and it’s nice to have pretty things around at Christmas”, is there some sort of association between amaryllises and the holidays that I’ve never heard of?

11

As to whether they’re indoor or outdoor plants – I believe they’re not really hardy enough to go into your garden year-round if you’re further north than zone 10 or so (Southern California, south Florida). Some people plant the bulbs in their gardens during the summer for the foliage thing I mention above – some years I do, some years I just leave them in their pots on my front porch. I suspect they do a little better after they’ve summered in the ground, but they do fine the years they stay potted.

I’m really not sure when their natural blooming season is – the point of forcing them indoors (and forcing is what you’re actually doing) is to get them to grow at a particular time, namely December or January. It’s really only been the last ten years or so that there’s been such a link between the amaryllis and Christmas – I certainly don’t remember any such connection (or the flowers themselves, for that matter) when I was a kid. The point of making them bloom for Christmas is that you can – I tend to start mine the first or second weekend of December so they’ll bloom in February, when my psyche is in far more need of a lift.

BTW, my Christmas cactus just started blooming within the last week – also nice, and something that doesn’t require any particular effort on my part to make happen. That will continue sporadically for the next two months or so.

Growing needs: A lot of light (south-facing window if you’ve got one) and not too much water – a good watering once a week, but don’t let it sit in the overflow. Zsofia – you won’t hurt anything to unpot it, throw some small rocks or gravel in the bottom of the pot, and then repot it. I personally would not fertilize it every week – or if you do, you should probably cut down the stuff to half strength. I have a very, very green thumb and I fertilize once a month September through May, and every other week during the summer growing season. Overfertilizing tends to benefit foliage over the flowers. I’m sure another gardener will be along with an alternative opinion on that point, though.

12

My mother-in-law has an amaryllis contest every Christmas as well–but in this contest you are not supposed to plant them until Christmas. I was going to buy one at Target this year to see if I could get it to bloom for Christmas, but my husband said it would be seen as “cheating”…even though I would have bought my own and I don’t care about the contest anyway. I ended up buying a calla lily instead (which is growing quite nicely.)

As I said, I don’t care much about the contest. Apparently, Father so-and-so would always win because he watered his with holy water :rolleyes: . But, he died before I got a chance to be involved, anyway.

You could try holy water, I guess, if you’re of a mind to do so.

Sometimes, you get two stems…that’s really cool. I’ve never gotten one to bloom for a second year…have gotten foliage, but no flowers. But, I always get a new one for Christmas, anyway. Sometimes, the flowers get so big that you have to support the stem by tying it to a dowel.

13

So, Anastasaeon – how’d’ja do?

14

Count me among those who secretly wished that the pickle picture was intentional. Made me smile, anyway.

15

I dunno about hers, but mine has great foliage but no flowers yet. But when that thing started growing it was doing a good inch a day! (But still no flowers.)

16

The flowers on my Mom’s amaryllis died a few weeks ago. I cut the whole stalk off at the top of the bulb. Currently, there are four new leaves growing out of the bulb; the tallest is about 7 inches.

17

Zsofia does your plant have a central flower stalk showing at all? If not, you probably won’t get flowers this year. My experience is that the plant sends up the stalk and blooms, and then the leaves develop. It may not be anything you’ve done wrong, the bulb may just be too young.

18

No, as far as I can tell there’s nothing coming out of that thing that’s going to pop out a flower. Although there’s a brand new leaf on the side, coming out of another “line” on the bulb, that looks oddly thick, as if it might be a flower stalk - it’s a little strange. But it’s too early to tell about that one.

I’m just proud it isn’t dead yet. (Also I don’t want to hurt its feelings and make it think it’s all about the beauty myth.)