Hi Andy,
Thanks for sharing your great pics.
I love the green veins and the ruffles on La Mer.
I have not seen Red joseph before where did you get that one from?
Lemon Sorbet is so cute!

I love Lemon Sorbet! I love the size... the color is nice , of course... but the miniature size is very cool!

La Mer WOW! $17 one bulb of it... Steep. But what a nice color with the green veins... I need Summer to come already!

Hehe! Soultan... you're already drooling... you can't wait to place the Aussie order, can you?! I think you have CHAD worse than I do... and I have it really bad!

Yes... I can't wait to place the Aussie order... If they had pictures like this on their web site, their amarylli would fly off the fields like swallows.

Yes, they would... they have a very large selection, so I'm surprised they don't have larger, clearer photographs...

Most of the hibridizers like this. Most of the photos of Hadeco large enough, but they are color tweaked and sometimes grainy... Ludwig's site has ridiculous pictures... Nieuwkerks has some nice pictures, but heir product description is quite general... But I must admit, they are well representing their varieties. I just wonder if that's all they have...
Penning also has very varying quality pictures.

One would think that a hybridizer would want to attract customers, so they'd make sure that their pictures are clear and well representing...
But oh well. They are good at hybidizing flowers. Maybe they only have a polaroid machine to make pictures with. :o)

Maguire's website is of the quality you'd expect from a small business that builds and maintains their own online facilities... it's not a bad site, just not very high tech... I would guess that they are the builders and keepers of the website, themselves... as opposed to having a website professionally done for big dollars...

You are right. Who's talking. :o)
But really, if they paid a little more attention, they might be able to export their bulbs. If their prices could be fit into the American average, I am sure that we could sell La Mer here...

Or any of their bulbs... they do have quite a few very nice ones... although, I notice that a few look rather close to some of the ones we know...

Yes. And quite a lot of them are very similar to each other. Also, $30 for a bulb seems to me quite steep price.

I agree... but there are some that I really like... and those are not in the higher priced range... they have some very nice ones for $10 each, and $14 each...

For this first, experimental order, I will choose from the $10 varieties. Later, I might go to the more expensive ones...

Yes... it wouldn't do to buy a bunch of the expensive ones, only to find that they don't ship well, or there is some other problem... it would be more prudent to let the less expensive ones be the test run bulbs! I'm off to look at their site again... I keep changing my mind about the ones I like the best!

I start with A, and order the first 10. :o) OCD is sometimes extremely helpful in deciding.

I wish it were that easy for me! What if I don't care for all of the first ten in the list? What if there are others down the list farther that I like more?

It's times like these that having OCD would be very helpful for me! Hehe!

One can never really know... Just look at La Mer in the beginning of this thread. On Maguire's site, I wouldn't think of buying it. That is a very bad picture of this variety. But when you see the details, the green veining, it is a must have. I have not seen green veining in an amaryllis before. So in this count, I simply say: I will order the first 10. What if they look different and amazing in real life? What if I miss out by trying to select based on those pictures? I am glad that OCD works for me.

That's a very good thought... the pictures on the site leave a lot to be desired... and even if it turns out that you don't exactly love one or two of them, they are still good breeding material...

I would like to borrow your OCD for a little while... just until after ordering... Hehehe!!

I like it. I base most of my decisions on OCD patterns, and I like it a lot. Fortunately, I don't suffer from it whatsoever. It is nice to be sure of things.

That would be nice... I, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble making decisions... I have been up and down Maguire's list over a dozen times, and I'm no closer to deciding which ones I really want than when I first looked at the listing!

I find that it's sometimes easier for me to make decisions when under pressure to do so... you should see me trying to decide what to order from a restaurant menu! Unless I already have a favorite, I am usually still deciding when the waitress is standing there and has everyone else's order written down! At that point, I just blurt out the thing that I first looked at and thought might be good... I am seldom disappointed, though... luckily, I enjoy most foods!

Choosing bulbs from a catalog is the same for me... I change my mind several times before settling on a final order!

Well... they it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind... I am just the extreme of that statement! Hehe!

You still have time...
Maybe, you should download all the pictures from the site, compile them to a single folder and create a NO folder under it, and every day, move ONE picture that you like the least that day to the NO folder. This way, by the time we should order, you would have less to decide from. But I expect that the first few NOs would be easy, since they would be the expensive ones, like La Mer in the beginning of this thread. Isn't it lovely though... I want it, but I know I will not buy it (yet).

It's becoming apparent that the most desirable ones are in the higher priced range... although, there are several from the $10 area that I do like... I just really wish the pictures were better...

Of course. The most desirable ones will always be on the higher price range. It is a market society. Whatever is needed will be the highest priced.

The more I look at them, though, the more I see that I like... all of them are pretty in their own way, but some just jump out at you! Even some without pictures have very intriguing descriptions... this is going to take me a while... good thing we have a while! Hehe!

Sometimes having time to decide is worse... By the time the right moment comes, you will be taken away in straight jacket.

I'll just take a Valium before I sit down to make my list! Hehe!

Up to you. It seems like that you are more obsessed with choosing than I am. :o) I just want some, and whatever comes, I am fine with... Just let them be healthy and perform well.

I'd like health and performance above all else! I guess I'm just having too much fun thinking about which ones to add to my list! The choice is huge! :-)

It seems like, we can play this game every year...

If we ordered between 5 and 10 bulbs each, every summer, it would take several years to collect them all! And by the time we were halfway through collecting, there would probably be new varieties added to the listing! Technically speaking, it could take forever to get them all!

That is what I implied... You can never really stop collecting these... And the more growers get into the hybridizing business, the broader the offering becomes.

The thought of it all is overwhelming! I can see that we'd better get our land on the market soon, so we can buy a house that has a greenhouse or sunroom attached! This could get ugly, otherwise! LOL!

We've been holding out, waiting for land values to rise a bit more, but if I want to keep collecting bulbs, I can't afford to wait too long! :-)

As it seems like, property prices are rather dropping. I wouldn't like to be in a situation where I would be forced to sell my house...
But one thing is true. I always have to get a house that has a nice yard primarily for Toto, and even a patch enough for gardening. I was very lucky to get some amaryllis beds created in this house, but they actually look quite good, and the bench on the main one's edge actually is quite useful. People love to sit out there.

My dream garden, that I hope to have someday, will have raised beds with stonework and a wide flagstone-type flat edging to sit on... it will make working in the bed easier, plus, it's a nice place to sit and look at the flowers!

Believe it or not, a lot of areas in Illinois are booming, and construction and industry is going strong... we have a nice 5 acre parcel, with the length of it road frontage, in an area where they just put in exit and entrance ramps to a main interstate highway... and that has pushed land values up, luckily... we'll be putting the parcel on the market in early spring, I believe... a recent appraisal put it in a very nice price range for us... we should be able to purchase outright another home with at least an acre or two, and pay off the mortgage with what the parcel sells for... it won't be a new home, but I don't like the new tract houses, anyway... the construction these days is pretty poorly done, unless you build your own home.

My other dream is to put up a greenhouse when we finally buy a home, or tear out a wall and build a sun room!

Or buy a flower field. :o) Good luck in your endeavor! I hope, finally, you will be able to settle in a place you can call home.

Thank you... I hope so, too... I really miss having my own gardens...

Renting is fine for some, but to me it feels kind of like... well, I prefer to put down roots, as it were... and owning a home is the only way I feel like I can put down those roots and spread out and grow... :-)