"I hope we can still get that cool rainbow look but I'm really just happy I'm getting any growth at all right now." Not in Virginia Beach but it's impressive, surprising even, that it managed to return from the roots. Where did your gift giver get it - or did you ask? I think they are pretty rare in commerce. "We have a lot of crepe mertles here that people cut back and the tree regrows its branches back, would a eucalyptus do the same?" It would but it's a bad idea, especially for crape myrtle. Google "crape murder" - I believe there used to be a website.

Geoff, Many species have VERY long, thick root systems, it's advisable not to handle the roots as Amaryllids in general are incredibly picky! Some species such as H. parodii have incredibly fleshy anchor roots which are used to pull the bulb quite far into the ground as they're found in very dry places in Argentina. I've noticed that some of the desert species have roots incredibly similar to the S. African Amaryllids. Five inch clay would work for some species and not for others, you've mentioned I think H. parodii and H. mandonii in the past and both are large plants that would need much larger pots for blooming, mature bulbs. Some species are small like H. traubii or H. striatum, these would be more well suited for smaller pots, I'd say 6 inch Azelea pots which are much deeper than others. You want something where they can thrive and A.) You repot only to sperate or B.) To add fresh medium. If you want to continue are large specimen with many bulbs per pot I would agree to an even larger pot, 10 inches or so. For the large species like H. brasilianum I have mine in a two gallon nursery pot along with several offsets, the pot is actually starting to deform so I must move to a size higher!

Silver Dollar Eucalyptus is Eucalyptus cinerea.

I was thinking of adding in a totem but a friend told me it'll just creep back up to stand on its own. Not a bad idea though. I'll look around. Thank you both for the perlite advice. I'll see what I can do that's affordable. And again, apologies for the dumb question. The layering was questionable even to me but I had to make sure since when I looked for images of perlite, I saw people add a layer of it on the surface of their pots.