My favorite spring flower is tulip so I started forcing a whole bunch of tulip, crocus and muscari bulbs back in October. 12 weeks of chilling seemed to be a lot of time so I also got some "no-chilling" bulbs: paperwhites, iris reticulata and amaryllis to get the flowers faster.
The paperwhites are not coming back: they are bland, floppy and have a strange smell. Iris retuculata bulbs are sitting in the pots with 1-inch shoots for the last 10 weeks or so.
But amaryllis... Boy, are they gorgeous! I'm really not into lilies and lily-like flowers but these plants are impressive. I guess this is the essence of my gardening life: success and failure go hand in hand.
My first bulb, a presumably "Red Lion" amaryllis. It bloomed only 5 weeks after planting!
When a local garden center advertised 75% off amaryllis sale I grabbed some more bulbs including this amazing "Faro" variety. While the flowers seem to be on the shorter stems due to the bulb sprouting extensively in the store, there are 2 flower spikes with 7 flowers each!
So far I am firmly on track with my goal: have flowers in the house from Thanksgiving until spring.
Thank you for joining my Google friends.
ReplyDeleteYour amaryllis are very beautiful.
I bought two amaryllis plants at our local supermarket on sale. Both bloomed for weeks. Hopefully they will bloom again. Please see my latest post.
There is a new amaryllis available called Papillio - Butterfly Amaryllis. This very exotic looking plant came originally from the Amazon.
Unlike the other amaryllis, this one is an evergreen.
Thank you!
DeleteThe Faro amaryllis bulb grew a third (!) flower spike and is blooming again. The bulb itself seems to be shrunken and weary though
This brightened up my day! I love the color red and seeing the Red Lion Amaryllis almost instantly took my tiredness away. Thanks for sharing these with us.
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