HI. I'm not sure about your question....but I love amaryllis. I have gotten some awesome bulbs from home depot over the past few years. I always open the box and look at the bulb -- some of them are much larger and healthier looking than some of the others.

good luck with them,
Maureen

Definitely B!!! I always think it's great to "save" a plant or a bulb and then watch it get nursed back to health and even thrive. Good for you!

Anna

I don't know much about amaryllis...that is why I popped into this forum....and then I find out its brand new.

I have only had one amaryllis bulb that I grew.....a few years ago.....but this year I have purchased 3....3 different sizes.....One was purchased at home depot...the other two from a nursery.....I brought them home and planted all on the same day....they are now showing flower stems......The medium sized bulb now is showing two flower stems.

I have to ask.....what is red blotch?

Good luck with your bulbs and let us how it works out for you.

Sierra

My congaratulations !!
I'ld say rescuing amaryllis is always worth the trouble. When you get flowers again that is your reward.
Besides, by 'mothering and caring' of ill bulbs you learn to know them better, and how to treat them according to their wishes.

Now I'ld like to know how you got rid of red blotch, a disease you find more and more in bulbs bought at stores.

@ Sierra: especially at the neck there is a red discoloration, caused by a very tiny mite that creaps between the scales.
The red turns into black dead material, the leaves and stem disform, and finally the bulb dies as the interior is affected.

Let's make this a great forum !
Jaap

Hurray, hurray, hurray! This is so exciting...the new forum, as well as that your clearance bulbs are doing so well, Kato_B. :)

To answer your question, B, definitely B. It takes skill and patience to nurse a sickly plant back to health, but if you have enough of each of these, it's worth the effort. Good for you--you obviously put your growing skills to good use on these bulbs. I love clearance bulbs because they're often mislabeled, so I get a nice surprise when they finally bloom.

Here's my own saving sick hippeastrum/wasting time question:

I have 2 that shrink, rather than grow, every season. They don't have much (if any) red blotch. They escaped the vicious bulb fly. They've been puttimg up good leaves, but they haven't bloomed in two or three years. I fertilize them like there's no tomorrow...and they shrink. Do I throw them out, or wait? They have good roots; I checked this fall. Any recommendations as to what I should do to improve their size if I don't give up on them?

I'm so happy about this new forum. Now I'm really going to have to learn to embed photos in a post--I've got a no ID blooming now that's so pretty...

Amanda

I just happened tosee this forum listing and look forward to all I may learn.Every year for several years I have bought the Amaryllis kits and try to have them in different stages all through the winter.When spring comes they go in the flower beds and always bloom the next spring.Never have I found them at the end of the season marked down.Maybe just have not been in the right place at the right time.Maybe this year I'll haunt Lowe's and HD.

Let's make this a really active forum! Gabriell

The only cheapies I've found are the kits at Home Depot. They have flowered nicley the first year and then keep shrinking. I've never had one that rebloomed...

It was really pathetic how excited I was the day I found the clearance bulbs. I looked through all the boxes, got one of each color remaining and then immediately phoned a friend to share the excitement.... ok so maybe it was a crummy night.... snowing... and I had a long drive ahead of me. I was desperate for a happy note in my day.

Someone else would probably do a better job explaining red blotch. It's a disease the bulbs get that looks like red patches and...well.... "blotches". Word on the Garden Web is that the cause is small mites that live on the bulbs. The damage they do leaves the bulb open to the disease.

I guess I should now confess that I'm not the best plant caretaker.... luckily the bulbs just wanted to grow!
I gave the bulbs a nice gritty soil - none of that peat stuff that comes with the kit - and then since the blotch was from the mites, I sprayed the bulbs with Safer's insecticidal soap every few days for a week or two to control the mites. I got a few blooms but there were red streaks all over the stems and leaves, so much that the first growth died back.... but eventually one of the bulbs sent up healthy leaves! (the other two went back into dormancy).

When spring rolled around I took the two rootless, dormant bulbs and planted them in the garden outside. After about a month the spring rain finally convinced them to grow again so I potted them up and put them on the drip irrigation along with the third already growing bulb.....

Then I got really lazy. I threw a little leftover 10-10-10 on the soil and had a dripper on each pot that watered them two times a day. Most of the summer they were sopping wet but surprisingly enough they didn't seem to mind.
I think I got lucky. Next year I'm repotting, fertilizing regularly and MAYBE cutting back on the water. I hope I get HUGE bulbs by the end of the year!

"It was really pathetic how excited I was the day I found the clearance bulbs."

Kato_B, how is it ever pathetic to be excited about finding Hippeastrum bulbs?! I would have done the same, except maybe called *two* friends.

Amanda

I did this one year when Lowes had some more unusual varieties for $1 at the end of the season, they had bloomed already, but 3 out of 5 put out another bloom, so I got to see what they looked like. I remember I got Cinderella, Clown, a green flowering variety I can't remember the name of right now, maybe Jade, and a couple of other different ones besides the usual red. I have had them about 5 years, and usually put them outside in the summer. This fall though, I neglected to bring in a couple in time & the bulbs are mooshy. Guess they are goners, hope I find another sale that good but I have never seen any but common ones since.

All I see are the common ones, and they don't seem to be at every store like they have been in the past. Maybe sales haven't been as good as hoped. I would love to find a few less common types because even the garden centers in the area have the same varieties (although in a much bigger-healthier bulb).

So it seems we are out of bulbs for this year... RC still has a few, and JC is still packing one here and there, but we will have to do with whatever we have acquired this year... Or does anyone have a secret source s/he wouldn't mind to share?

Soultan...our Walmart here has their 'garden amaryllises'out for weeks already for $3 something. The usual White, Red, Red and White varieties as they are tagged. I do not know of any bulb companies that are shipping named varieties except RC, B&B (Spring shipping)and Park Seeds has some too. Check it out!

You know I had to make a rule that I only buy bulbs if I can buy 10 varieties from a company in on package, so it is pretty much out for me this year (thank God). I will start worrying around June again, when the new offering hits the Internet for pre-order.

But Soultan, your having so much would practically make that impossible by now. Maybe this year you can put that down to 7-8 varieties per company.

:o) They are constantly coming out with new varieties... Maybe, I will change this rule to 10 bulbs a month initially if I cannot find 10 new varieties per company... And when October comes and the local nurseries start selling bulbs, I go and buy all new varieties I find, so in this October, I bought like 30-40 bulbs all together. :o)

Soultan-you are definitely addicted, my friend! That's a lotta plants!! You go, guy!!!!

That was just October... There were June, July, August, September, November, December, and February... I bought 10 bulbs each month, plus the occassional findings in local nurseries...
We agreed with Maria already that I am sick. It is not addiction already, it is sickness... I need the smell of fress amaryllis bulbs from time to time to survive...

After purchasing almost 60 old and new varieties this amaryllis season, I think I'm almost done. BUT...RC is really tempting me!!! Offering a free Papilio per order this spring. So that leaves us buyers 2 more months to get more. I already have a Papilio and am very happy with it. I hope they'd offer another variety or at least give us a choice. After purchasing/spending so much from them, I think we deserve this.