Hi Steve,

I really like this comment and I'm in the same predicament. I was thinking of doing the same thing this summer and for the same reason. Where do you live? I'm in Cambridge (Boston) MA and I plan on doing this around mid May in a very sunny part of the garden. One thing I will do is amend the soil with lots of compost and composted manure to fatten up the bulbs for the fall. I have a feeling I know what my family are getting for Christmas this year :-)))) Good luck and let me know what you think.

Fred

Sorry I can't help you with your original question. But I was curious on how you store them - when you say bare root are you cutting off the roots?

I live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I think it's technically zone 6b here but many winter's will have no nights below 0F and typically we will only have a few nights in the single digits. I actually left some bulbs outside under a thick layer of leaves covered with black plastic to see if I might possibly be able to overwintered them in the garden with protection.

I dug the rest of the bulbs to store in my unfinished/unheated basement which stays around 50F all winter. They were growing in loose organically rich soil in the garden so when I dug them the dirt mostly just falls off. So the bulbs still have plump roots which I will leave on the bulbs when I replanted them.

I'm thinking maybe I'll try replanting them around the middle of March which is about 8 weeks before our average last frost date. I'll mulch them with a good layer of wood chips to protect against light frost's. I wonder if a cold frame might be helpful too?

I also have the largest bulb in a pot near a south facing window and it's sending up it's flower stalk right now.

Interesting! We are zone 6 as well (Boston) and I would think you were atleast 10 degrees warmer on any given day than here!

If we only consider the USDA zone map it would seem like our climates are comparable, the Shenandoah Valley is that swath of 6b medium green on the north Western edge of Virginia, but I think there are some factors that make our conditions quite different. We're around 1400 feet above sea level and inland while Boston is on the coast. We also experience a partial rain shadow from the mountains of West Virginia so our rainfall is less than ideal, technically we're a semi-arid climate here. :(

We also experience a lot of wild temperature fluctuations throughout winter. Though our average midwinter highs are around 40F and lows around 20F, we often have periods of several days when the range is either 20 degrees higher or 20 degrees lower. Because of these wide temperature fluctuations we generally don't have a very deep frost penetration depth, only about 6 inches. Because of this I can often get borderline hardiness bulbs (like dahlias and calla lilies) to overwintered outdoors if I take some extra precautions like heavy mulching. If I can keep the ground from getting water saturated around the bulbs by covering them with an impervious material like sheet plastic I believe that helps too. So I have some optimism that I might be able to figure out a way to leave my Hippeastrum bulbs in the ground here with some protection, but I'm not quite ready to risk them all yet!

Hi Steve, there was a discussion about hardy varieties here last season. Maybe it helps: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4581865/hardy-amaryllis?n=15

Anja

Thanks Steve - I love the analysis! Will read through that thread as well Anja. I wouldn't be able to put the hippies outside but I have several bulbs in the garden and they randomly grow or don't grow year over year and I've never known why. Last year a bunch of tulips popped up and I've lived here 11 years and never planted tulips!

Today turned out to be one of those 20 degree above average days (65F here today!) so I went out and removed the 6 mil black polythene sheeting and pushed the thick leaf layer aside. I was quite pleased to see that the bulbs seem to be firm and healthy and not mushy and ruined. I've got about 12" of dry leaves insulating them.

Back at the beginning of January during that Arctic blast that hit the east coast for a week, I had several nights with lows near 0F and days only reaching about 15F so I'm becoming pretty convinced that I should be able to overwintered my Hippeastrums outdoors regularly here using this method of protection. :) It will be interesting to compare the blooming date and scape length of the outdoor bulbs vs. the ones I stored in my basement.

Hi Steve,

That's wonderful news!!!! Please keep us informed as I am very tempted to try your method on some of my burgeoning hippies, in particular a pot of x Johnsonii that were grown from seed and are attempting to burst the pot they're in. I think you hit the nail right on the head about keeping the bulbs dry and covered. If they do survive and flower, I bet you they'll be more vigorous than the ones growing pots.

May years ago I tried to over winter some hippies by just covering them with a very thick mulch. What I hadn't counted on was the alternating freeze, thaw and rain percolating through. Well...let me tell you, that following spring revealed a mushy and smelly mess. I haven't tried it since, but after reading this string, I'm filled with a new sense of optimism.

That looks really great, thank you for the update, Steve! I left some bulbs outside too but I did not mulch them properly and I think I've lost them. I will try your method next winter with some bulbs for sure!

Anja

Hi Steve,

It's amazing to see that the ones left in the ground are so much healthier looking than the stored ones. Please post pictures when they bloom and please keep us in touch with your progress :-)))

Fred

It seems strange that the bulbs stored dry in my basement at around 55F degrees want to bloom before the bulbs that were overwintered in the ground. I've even occasionally seen a bulb starting to send out a scape in the storage bucket. I would have thought that the one's that overwintered in the ground would have bloomed first since they have an established root system. Blooming must be triggered after a certain number of days at a certain temperature which would cause the bulbs in the cold ground to bloom later.

They look really great! I will try this for sure with some of my bulbs. How deep did you plant them?

I didn't plant them very deep at all. I could still see the tip of the bulb. But most importantly I covered the bed with about a foot of leaves and then sheet plastic to keep the rain and snow off both the bulbs and the leaves. You don't want the leaves to get wet and mat down or they will lose their insulating value.