GHOSTS OF AMARYLLIS PAST
This is the time of year when I generally order–or at least contemplate ordering–hybrid amaryllis or Hippeastrum bulbs for holiday gifts and home display. Though the most stalwart of the dahlias, roses, mums and asters are still flowering, hard frosts are just around the corner and the growing season is drawing to a close. It won’t be long before indoor plants will take center stage once again.
As I think about my amaryllis order, I have to face the fact that there are three ghosts of amaryllis past among the crowd of vacationing houseplants on my back porch. They are last year’s holiday amaryllis, which I have watered and occasionally fertilized since they stopped blooming in December and January. While no longer the buxom beauties that arrived here last fall, they are still firm to the touch and have several long green leaves. I have high hopes that they will produce some flowers this year.
Most of us who are the slightest bit interested in growing winter flowering bulbs, have been taught that amaryllis require forced dormancy to stimulate rebloom. This is not strictly true. In the wild nobody puts species amaryllis in Stygian darkness twenty-four hours a day, carefully rescuing them after 8 to 10 weeks and reintroducing them to water and sunlight. The species plants that are the ancestors of modern amaryllis hybrids are hard-wired to slow their growth in the winter, but it does not stop completely. Therefore, reduced watering is probably all my hybrid amaryllis need to stay healthy and even rebloom.
Of course, I will probably end up forcing dormancy anyway because I have never done it any other way. To prepare for this, I went down to check the available space in the Stygian darkness of my own cellar. As I rooted around, I noticed another ghost of amaryllis past–a pot of three bulbs that I had placed under the potting bench two years ago just after Labor Day. They have languished there ever since and at some point entered into eternal dormancy. When I found them I decided that excessive guilt would be a waste of time, so I dumped them in the compost, cleaned out the pot with bleach and will use it to pot up the more viable ghosts currently on the back porch. Let’s hope the bleach liberated the pot from bad amaryllis karma.
With or without forced dormancy, my ghosts of amaryllis past won’t bloom in time for the December holidays, so I will be ordering some new ones. My usual vendor has bulk packs of five unlabeled bulbs for a discounted price. I generally go with those, supplying my own pots and soil. With amaryllis as with other bulbs, generally the larger the bulb, the more flowers you will get. For years I thought my preferred vendor had the largest amaryllis bulbs in the industry, but now I see that I was wrong. Like the national debt and the size of fast food meals, amaryllis have gotten bigger. Earlier this week, I was trolling the aisles at one of the high end garden centers and saw a box of gigantic amaryllis bulbs–each one about the size of a baby’s head. The tags guaranteed three flower stalks instead of the usual two and the price was more than double what I will be paying for my somewhat smaller beauties. I decided twenty dollars per bulb was too much for an amaryllis and left the behemoths to others with more disposable income.
When my new amaryllis arrive, I will pot them up, put them on my crammed dining room window seat/winter houseplant area and wait for them to sprout. The week before Christmas, I will dispatch them to friends and neighbors to provide some post-holiday brightness. After their departure, it will be time to rescue last year’s ghosts from the basement. This time, I will mark the date on the calendar to prevent forgetfulness.
Watching an amaryllis sprout and grow is like watching an ongoing miracle. Once the bulbs get started, the growth is so fast that sometimes you can almost see it. Watching a ghost of amaryllis past sprout is even more of a miracle–at least to me–because it means that the plant got through the end of winter, survived a summer outside, made it through dormancy and was rescued from darkness while life remained in the bulb. For some reason, I have never successfully rejuvenated an amaryllis for a third season of bloom. This is probably a good thing because it allows me to experiment with new colors and shapes. If I ever buy a twenty dollar bulb, my attitude may change, as paying that much transforms amaryllis from a small luxury into a significant investment.
Amaryllis, either bare-root or in boxed gift packs, are available everywhere from now through the holidays and even beyond. If you want to order multiples of certain amaryllis at wholesale prices, try Van Engelen, 23 Tulip Drive, P.O. Box 638, Bantam, CT, 06750, (860) 567-8734, www.vanengelen.com. Van Engelen’s sister company, John Scheepers, www.johnscheepers.com, at the same address, features smaller bulb quantities.