Amaryllis Care Tips
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Apple Blossom re-blooming Amaryllis keeping me company in winter. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
Amaryllis Care Tips
If you received an Amaryllis as a gift over the holidays, or any time of the year, here are 16 handy tips on enjoying the lovely flowers and then keeping the bulb healthy so that it blooms again. And again.
These orange Amaryllis bulbs were in wax sleeves and on sale when I first brought them home. After several months re-growing roots, they bloomed. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
Amaryllis are the South American cousins to surprise lilies. In North America, they can spend summers outside but need to be kept inside over our harsh winters. They are usually sold around Christmas for holiday gifts and understandably so. The bulbs are fun to watch as the flower stems grow. The flowers themselves are beautiful and striking and they can easily brighten up a room corner without taking up a lot of space.
Plant by covering only the roots and cut off the stalk once Amaryllis finish blooming. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Tip 1. Plant your Amaryllis bulb in new soil with only the bottom half of the bulb in soil. Do not cover the whole bulb in soil.
Tip 2. Add a stake next to the planted bulb so that you can use it to tie up the growing flower stem. Amaryllis can have 2-feet tall flower stems.
Tip 3. Water around the base of the bulb to keep the soil moist but not soggy.
Cutting spent blooms from this Apple Blossom Amaryllis saves the plant from making seeds and preserve energy. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
Tip 4. Once the bulb starts to flower, remove spent flowers so energy goes into the remaining blooms.
Tip 5. When flowers are spent, cut the flower stalk at the base of the bulb.
Once blooms are spent, keep watering so plant grows leaves to collect solar energy. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
Tip 6. Keep watering bulb until leaves spring from the bulb.
Tip 8. Keep watering so leaves can collect sun and recharge the bulb. This can take about 6 months.
Tip 9. If the bulb is still green with leaves after the danger of frost, place the bulb outside in a shady area.
Tip 10. Once green leaves have died back, stop watering for 8 weeks. You can remove the bulbs and store them in a brown bag in a cool 55F spot or just leave them in the pot. Before watering, replace the top 2 inches of soil.
Tip 11. You can wait until you see the tip of a bud to start watering or time the watering 6 weeks prior to when you want the bulb to bloom.
Tip 11.5. When buying Amaryllis bulbs, look for that little bud tip coming out of the top of the bulb. Go ahead and open the box and look, seeing that beginning round bud tip means you will have at least one flower stalk. Look carefully. If the green tip is skinny that means leaves are starting and you won’t have a flower.
Tip 12. Once Amaryllis are ready to bloom - these are Red Lion Amaryllis bulbs re-blooming - add a stake next to the stems to keep them from falling over. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
Tip 13. If you get leaves and not buds, your bulb needs another growing cycle to collect sun to store as energy in the bulb. Follow tips 8-10 and try again.
Tip 14. You may also find tiny baby bulbs growing on the side. You can remove those tiny bulbs and place then in a separate pot so they can keep growing.
There are a number of Amaryllis varieties, mine are usually on sale ones. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)
15. Amaryllis bulbs sold in wax bulb covers may survive if you remove the wax and get the bulbs in soil to regrow cut off roots. Be patient, those bulbs have been traumatized so need to re-establish themselves before they flower.
16. As leaves are growing, feed your Amaryllis bulbs with a multi-purpose fertilizer in water or time release granules.
17. Amaryllis can bloom in sunless spots but will need to be placed back in indirect sun so leaves can collect energy.
Amaryllis bulbs are lovely, fun bulbs to grow and, with a little care, will re-bloom for years to come. I have some bulbs that have been re-blooming now for more than 6 years.
