MBT - Enjoyed your Amaryllis pictures and reading your blog entries. They do get addictive. I have several planted out back that started as Christmas gifts. I was even hinting to my husband today at Kmart that he could get me another one. I love to watch them grow. I have one that I grew from seed. No flower yet but I can't wait to see what it is. Good luck with your Amaryllis. BTW, we moved to California from Illinois (my hubby is from Chicago) 28 years ago. I will never go back!

Hey Aptos,

Not go back to Chicago?

And miss this glorious weather...turn on the Bears game, it's about 2 F outside right now!

Wildcat
(I am about 1 hour from Chicago.)

Aptos,

Thanks for the feedback. I feel like a drug addict trying to get a fix on my next Amaryllis. I can't wait to try some crosses and see what I get.

Funny you should mention California. I moved here from there 28 years ago and I don't want to go back either. LOL. Of Course I was a baby and didn't have a say in the matter but I love it here, even if we do have too much snow and construction.

I was looking at your page and see we have another thing in common, Brugs. I just got some seeds in a trade and I am going to see if I can sow them and grow a couple. I think I feel yet another plant addiction coming on. So far I have Cacti and Succulents and I'm adding Amaryllis and if the seeds do well Brugs and of course various houseplants.

MBT

Wild Cat,

Your not kidding. The colder it gets the more I wonder what is happening to all the amaryllis bulbs Menards is keeping out side. When I noticed it I sent the company an e-mail and told them, but that was a couple weeks back and I never heard anything back.

MBT

Hello Mr. Brown Thumb, and welcome. Those are some very lovely pictures. I especially like the one on the top right, with the light shining through the petals.

Addiction, you say? Some of us are a bit beyond the point of using that word...just wait until you make your first crosses. Yesterday, I saw a stunning potted Hippeastrum. It had one bloom stalk with 6 blooms/buds, but didn't look like it was going to produce a second stalk It had been mislabeled; I don't know that it was actually a "valid" hybrid, although if it was I think it was Melusine. Anyway, it was at a grocery store not especially near to where I live, and because it was potted, it was horribly over-priced. My husband, who knows what Hippeastrum addiction is but doesn't experience it, personally, was with me. He gave me one of those looks, and I put the pot back. It really was ludicrously over-priced, and I have...well, I have a lot of these already. Then I thought about the durned thing all the rest of yesterday. I wanted it...no, I NEEDED it for a pod parent. I got up an hour early this morning so I could get back to the store and buy that plant before work.

And the moral of that story is... not everyone knows a spectacular plant when they see it, because it was still there this morning! :) (Don't worry, it will probably take you a few years to get to this point.)

Have fun growing Apple Blossom and whatever the next one will be, and please show us more pictures when you have them.

Amanda

Hi Amanda,

Thanks for the comments on the pics and for the welcome. I'll be sure to take more to share as this current plant love takes over my life.

I know what you mean about recognizing a spectacular plant and having to have it. Unfortunately I have a competitor as my local Home Depot who doesn't take so long to decide on plants and picks them up before I make it back with the money.

I was looking at your page and it seems we have the same aesthetics when it comes to out door gardening. I love the look and feel of Japanese Gardens but I love too many plants to make it work. I just started out with out door gardening so it will make for an intersting spring and summer. I've got a few seeds that I'm dying to sow and see grow in my city garden.

Thanks

MBT

Reading your blog made me feel better, because now I know red lion sends leaves out first. I was worried cus the picture showed the flower spade coming up first. It took a while for the bulb to start growing, but what was amazing was that there was about an inch of growth right before I left for the christmas break and when I came back on the 3rd, the plant had completely gone insane and had taken off! I can't wait for it to bloom.

Target has Amaryllis kits on clearance at 75% off (Reg. price $5, clearance price $1.24). I picked up 4 of them yesterday:

Red Lion
White Lion
Apple Blossom
Minerva

claudosu,

Glad the blog was able to put your mind at ease. I don't know if they're suppose to leaf out first but mine did. Everything on the net I read said that the flowers stalks came first and most of the pics or plants I'd seen always had small leafs and blooms. I was happy when I noticed the flower emerging.

lilpanda,

Oh I know about the sale! I got went to about three Targets here and looked through about two hundred boxes looking for Amaryllis that weren't damaged or covered in red blotches. I finally found three good ones. Two are suppose to be white lion and one Minerva. They are just now starting to green up and put out more growth. When I got them they were already growing but were completely white. It will be interesting to see what they are.

MBT

Hmmmmm My 'red lion' has two flower stems. One getting ready to pop anytime now and another that is only 3 or 4 inches tall.....Only one leaf is showing and its about 3/4 of an inch tall.

MBT I went through all the boxes before I bought the bulbs too. It draws attention. LOL...When I was doing that at the grocery store....it made other people aware of the sale bulbs and they came over and bought some too. What surprised me was they they didn't even look to see the condition of the bulbs.....they had taken boxes that I had rejected because of red blotches or the bulbs not looking quite right or damage.

One of the ones I bought had a flower stem a couple inches tall......it was really white. Once potted up and in light, it greened up quite quickly.

Sierra

sierra_z2b,

yeah going through all the boxes does draw attention to you. Not just from customers but from angry shop workers. LOL.

Hi all,
I moved to Florida from Chicago a year ago. Overall, I like this climate better, because I can garden more. However this summer, I sure wished I was back in Illinois. Way too hot here and then the threat of hurricanes. Plus my dogs hate the grass, it's St Augustine and it's sharp and hurts their feet. My amaryllis were potted plants in Chicago. They are now adjusting to their new home and hope they bloom.

lynne_il

If you home sick I'll send you some snow. Althogh don't ask for any right now because we don't have it and I am totally enjoying the temperature being in the 50s this winter. But next year I'll send you a whole box if you want :0)

*Hello,global warming is that you?*

Hi,

I have been growing Amaryllis for years, and this is the first time I have seen anything like this so I wanted to post a question. My most recently acquired Amaryllis bloomed just before Christmas, and once the blooms faded and the stalk sagged I cut it off. I was expecting leaves to emerge next but another stalk has grown and is flowering now. The first stalk had 4 blooms, and this new stalk has 6 blooms. There are still no leafs appearing just a 28" stalk with 6 blooms. Has anyone every seen anything like this? Did I get hold of a hybrid of some sort?

I do have a picture of the first blooms (4) {{gwi:447478}}. You'll see two pictures side by side and if you cross your eyes the center photo will be in 3-d. (3-d is just another hobby, but this is the only picture I have). Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Miles

Hi Miles -

Two bloom scapes is very common, the 6 flowers on a scape is less common than 4 flowers. But, I regularly get 6 per scape on my 'Rilona' variety. Number of flowers per scape is a genetic trait, I think.

This year, I got a new bulb of 'Lemon-Lime' which is now putting up its 4th (!!) scape since Thanksgiving. The bulb wasn't even that big, just a little larger than a baseball, so I was very surprised. I've never had so many before. Last year 'Rilona' put up 3, but when I bought that bulb it was practically the size of a melon.

It's my understanding that for every 4-5 new leaves you get during the growing season, you will get one flower scape the next winter. Anybody else heard this, or have other information?

- Steve

Hi Miles - I experienced my first amaryllis last year. One of the 4 I had produced 2 stalks (scapes), and then took a long time to show any sign of foliage. It was weeks as I recall - I even thought my bulb was sick, and asked about it here on the bulbs forum. The other bulbs - the foliage showed soon after blooming was done. (Some even produced a 3rd scape!). I have even more of these plants this year, and I find they are all quite individual - each with their own traits, and that's what is so magical (and fun!) about them.

Anna

Anna and Steve,

Thanks for comments. I had just never seen this behavior before and did not know it was common. I normally plant them outside after they go dormant. And having recently moved this is my first Amaryllis in my new home. I thinking I might want to keep this one inside, but that would depend on how lucky I feel about finding another one which produces multiple scapes (thanks for the proper name too).

Miles

Hello Miles
I enjoyed the 3D effect.Please tell us how it is done.
ARIF

ARIF,

It's pretty simple, and with a little practice they turn out really nice. I focus on the subject with my weight on my left foot, take a picture, shift my weight to my right foot while keeping the subject centered and take a second picture. I only move the camera about 3-4 inches. Enjoy.

Miles

Take a look at Mr. Brownthumb's site in the Thread starting post... One would think that blogging is what he does professionally. What a site!

Soultan,

Thanks for the compliment but I'm no pro. I wish I knew more HTML and CSS so I could make my blog look nicer. What I've done to it so far is stuff that I've learned on other blogs that show you how to modify the standard blog template.

I wish some of you Amaryllis experts would start some blogs because I'd love to have more gardening blogs to visit and learn from and to store the info you all post here. It's a shame that GW doesn't archive all the forum and older threads get lost once they get bumped too far back.

Anyway the links above don't work anymore since I did some redesigns of my blog. This Amaryllis blog link shows you only the posts about Amaryllis. There's about 12 posts with pictures of my Amaryllis kids, and my posts where I experimented with pollination.

If anyone wants to start a blog about Amaryllids I'll be happy to help you with modifications to the template or give advice on my experiences.

I'd love to learn more about HTML, but I have to realize that there are just so many horses I can ride at the same time. I cannot be a pro in everything. My site is really basic, but at least, it has the information it has to provide and it was easy enough to put together and to maintain... If I didn't have to, I wouldn't maintain it...
Maybe when I became a millionaire, I will spend more time taking care of fun things, build a web site with amaryllis pictures and descriptions and stuff, for instance... But till then, I just admire your devoted work on gardening. I like your site.

Soultan, where is your website? I'd love to check it out.