Frank,
Remember, most people buy these bulbs to have them bloom in time for Thanksgiving and the holidays. You say you are in Zone 7...I am outside of Houston, Zone 8. Mine bloom on their own in March-June. So...yours probably would too. To get them in sinc, just count back 4-6 weeks and pull them out of the frige then. Make sure that you don't store them with apples....due to the gas "thing".

Please look at the FAQ v3 (DO NOT REPLY TO IT TO KEEP IT AT THE TOP OF THE LIST)...and that should give you lots of good advice.

Please don't cut off the scape or blooms! They have been preconditioned by the distributor for blooms and when you let the scape die back naturally, all that goes back into the bulb.

A book that you really need to get if you are going to take this hobby seriously (hahahaha!!...ok, obsessively) is by Veronica Read. You can find it on Amazon...Hippeastrum and Amaryllis are keywords in the title. It's our "bible".

Just curious...tell us where you live (city/state) and others on the list who live nearby can tell you what works best for them.
Kristi

And I like when they bloom in winter. I choose bulbs with roots, soak them in a solution of fungicide + insecticide in order not to put in the collection of pests and diseases.
Then dried and put into a slightly moist soil (but not wet!), so roots do not dry. When it was cold - stand in the cold and dry place for 2-4 months. Once the tip of the scape will appear, or decide that it is necessary that they bloom, then'm doing in the heat.
And yes, read the FAQ

Just started to read the FAQ posting this morning. It's going to take me some weeks to read and digest all this information. I'm glad that I asked some basic questions re: Amaryllis culture, especially interested to learn that the flowering response can be delayed by storing bulbs in refrigerator. Should the be stored in slightly damp, milled peat, to retain bulb moisture?...do the bulbs need to be kept dry? Glad you told me NOT to cut off flowering scape. I would have done this IF it would have helped the bulb store more energy for future flowering(s). Now I can flower the bulbs and decide either to keep or toss them.

Thanks for the book recommendation. Sounds like a "good read" for the dark, winter that's coming.

I live in New York City, in a northeast section of The Bronx, just sightly south of Westchester County.

oleg9grower: .....What kind of fungicide/insecticide do you use?...and, how long do you soak the roots? Do you also soak, or spray the bulb with the same solutions?

Thanks for the helpful information.

Frank, from Da-Bronx, NYC

[citate]What kind of fungicide/insecticide do you use?[/citate]
Benlate+imidacloprid, 30 min.
[citate]Do you also soak, or spray the bulb with the same solutions? [/citate]
Yes.

oleg9grower: ....Just saw the new posting re: insecticide/fungicide treatments.

Thanks for the clarification(s).

Frank

Sorry, I inadvertently typed another really long post.

Is it important to you for them to bloom right in time for Christmas?

If not, go ahead and pot them as soon as soon as you want. Bulbs can expand in size any time of year they have mature leaves; as I said in the other thread, the winter light is more direct, while the summer days are longer, and the benefit is roughly equal. Winter direct sun might be slightly better, if you have deciduous trees outside your window blocking summer light.

If they start trying to grow flower stem while dormant, the stem is FULL of water and if roots haven't yet grown to get it, the stem will be shorter, and sometimes you see hippeastrums in stores blooming 2-3 inches above the bulb.

I didn't say this in the other thread, but personally I don't like dormancy periods and they are unnecessary. I see them as missed opportunity for extra months of light and growth. It is harder to keep the bulbs the same size when you are forcing dormancy for a quarter to a third of the year. Sometimes it happens on its own if you rotate them out to "share" windowsill space with other plants, and it doesn't hurt them, but it causes them to lose some mass to re-grow their leaves.

Whenever you plant the bulb, it will come out of dormancy, bloom, shrink a lot while it's producing that growth, and then get on its own cycle of blooming in late winter based on natural light (unless you force dormancy). It blooms whenever you increase daylight hours... which happens automatically in months after December 21, but can be triggered if you move it from inside to outside or from a dim window to a light one.

As for storing hippeastrums... the only time I have ever lost a hippeastrum bulb completely is when I forced the dormancy of some smallish young bulbs that had come from seed (which were roughly the size of a tulip bulb - some larger some much smaller) and kept them in a cold garage, which was probably 40-45 degrees in winter. A couple of them rotted after they got warm again. So the idea of keeping them in a refrigerator makes me flinch.

A large one can most likely survive about anything, but when I think of the right kind of "cool" that would keep them dormant, I would imagine something like 55 degrees in a dry place, not a refrigerator which is, what, 35-38 degrees? Plus if your refrigerator were to accidentally freeze (which some occasionally do, especially in fall) it would severely damage the bulb.

You can store them dry in the dark.

I don't like to get unplanted bulbs wet for any reason. I don't know if it speeds the growth process, but they grow fine without soaking. One they contact damp soil the roots grow into it quickly. As for fungicide... the way I see it, the best fungicide is full sun helping the plant produce energy to defend itself. I've never used any. Once I dipped bulbs in a mix of neem oil/water because they had scale insects.

pizzuti: The new information that you added to this subject was very useful, especially for me.

I have a wide windowsill with a southern exposure, that gets full, blazing sun almost year round, and, for most of the day. Right next to this window, same exposure, are two sliding glass doors which lead out to a back deck that is also drenched in full sun, no shade at all. I grow containerized fig trees on this deck in the summer, which gets very hot, ...the figs love this, I do not, so I only use the back deck for growing plants in the warmer months. This is where the Hipps. will be when weather permits. Cold months, on the floor next to the sliding glass doors with sun streaming in, or, on the windowsill, with full sun exposure. They will share the space with some very expensive Clivias, and a "Sea Grape" tree - a Florida native. The deck get pretty crowded with plants in the summer months.

My concern was weak leaf growth if bulbs start to sprout in the weak winter light. I can't always say our winters are never dark and dreary, and sometimes it can be cloudy for days. THAT'S my concern, .... dark winter days with no supplemental light source. That's why I thought if I kept the bulbs dormant until Jan.-Feb. and THEN start them up, the leaves would be sprouting and forming in the better light/longer day months, and continue growing throughout the summer. But now, after reading your post, I have to re-think the "dormancy period" rationale Food for thought.

Thanks again for your helpful hints... much appreciated.

Frank