Why I Oughta...

'Tis the season for indoor Winter gardening.  It wouldn't be the Christmas season around here without growing some Amaryllis flowers from bulbs.  I've worked with the kids for a number of years to plant and grow some Christmas flowers.  Here's a look at last year's Amaryllis bulbs .   We picked three bulbs out at Wannemaker's Holiday Open House in November and planted them up.   The three varieties we selected were new to us:  La Paz - a Spider Amaryllis.     This La Paz is a Spider Amaryllis or 'Cybister'.  This post details how they're different: Over the last decade, Cybister Amaryllis have become increasingly more popular. Originally hybridized in South America, Cybister Amaryllis have narrow, somewhat spidery flower petals that appear more species-like than their big saucer-shaped cousins. La Paz has upper dark coral petals, while the lower petals are greenish-white edged in dark coral with darker midveins and a starburst green throat. Gardenia

We didn't get Christmas blooms out of this Flamenco Queen Amaryllis bulb, but the wait was worth it.  I last posted a photo of this plant at the very end of 2022 and showed the stalk had shot up with a bud at the tip .  Today?  It is wide-open.  And has two of the most-striking flower blooms on opposite sides of the stalk that we've ever grown.  See below for a look at the Flamenco Queen with red and white-striped petals and a lime-green center. Below is a photo showing that 'opposite' set of blooms.  And the two more that are on their way: This is also - by far - the tallest, lanky-est Amaryllis we've ever grown.  Even after we 'poisoned it' with an alcohol mix in December.  How tall? It is showing blooms that are 25.5" above the top of the bulb.  See below for the measurement:  It has started to lean, so I stuck in a plant support that you can see below.  The hard part with these Amaryllis bulbs and plant supports is that the width of the bulb forces

Yesterday, I showed the high and low blooms on the Magic Touch Amaryllis that we grew this Christmas season .  We also planted two *other* new bulbs at the same time - a Flamenco Queen and a Sunshine Nymph.  Neither of these bloomed for Christmas.  But, both of them have tall, proud stems with a large bud on top.  But, neither have made any moves to open or bloom just yet.  Maybe by New Year's Day? Here's the Sunshine Nymph Amaryllis below.  First a photo of the tag and then followed by a shot of the tip of the stem: And, here below, is the Flamenco Queen Amaryllis.  This one is very tall and slender.  I've been watering them with an alcohol mix, but that didn't seem to slow this one down.  It started to lean a little bit, so I used this plant support to keep it upright. 

Twelve days ago, I showed our first Amaryllis bloom:  A magic touch set of two flowers that didn't grow up at all - just bloomed straight from the bulb .  Weird.  The other two (new) bulbs still haven't flowered.  But, they've shot upwards.  This post shows the post-Christmas view of just the Magic Touch - I'll get to the other two tomorrow.   Did we get Christmas blooms this year?  Yes.  We did.  The Magic Touch.  We're going to get New Years blooms, too.  Here's what the top of the Magic Touch looks like today:

This past weekend, we went over to the local garden center to meet the Big Guy and his reindeer.  We've done this same deal a number of years and it is a nice way to start the holiday season.  In addition to having the kids visit with Santa for a few minutes, we also buy our annual allotment of Christmas flowers - Amaryllis bulbs.  These bulbs are big and nicely cared for and (this year) cost $21 each.  I'm pretty sure that when we started doing this, these bulbs were $15.  This year, we're growing three new bulbs as well as attempting to force four from last year.  I picked out one and two of the kids picked out their own, too.   Below are the tags of the three we came home with:  Flamenco Queen, Magic Touch and Sunshine Nymph.   These bulbs come nicely packed with a little padding for protection.  They're also MUCH larger than the bulbs you'd find in the typical packaged 'set' that includes a container, potting material and the bulb.  MUCH larger.  See bel

For the past few Christmas seasons, we've grown Amaryllis flowers from bulbs with (mostly) good results and have learned a little bit about different bulbs and planting situations with those .  This year, I'm trying (for the first time) to reuse some of my Amaryllis bulbs from last year .  I grew them in containers and had them bloom in the dark of Winter.  Then, I put their pots out in the sun all Summer-long.  And, finally brought them in to try to force them by putting them in the basement and trimming all the foliage off.  They've been in my basement (currently) for ten weeks.  I'll get them out in mid-November.   Besides, Amaryllis bulbs, another winter-time gardening project that people take on is growing Paperwhites from bulbs.  I found an eight-pack of Ziva bulbs and decided to try these at home.  Here, below, is the packaging from the bulbs from the orange Big Box store: Interesting that these are 'grown in Israel', no?   First, though...what are Paperw

Every Christmas season, I have usually planted a few Amaryllis bulbs with the kids in different-sized containers as a little winter-time project.  That has meant - historically - that we've bought a series of Amaryllis bulbs each November and planted them in hopes that they'd bloom near Christmas.  This past season, we had five planted in three pots .  Normally, I toss these bulbs and don't get them to re-bloom.  But this year, I'm trying something new:  trying to get them to re-bloom after spending the Summer out on our patio taking in sun and water.   What do they look like today?  They're full of green, strap-y foliage.  Here, below, are a few photos of the bulbs in their containers: After watching a few YouTube videos and rooting around on the Web, I think I've figured out that I need to remove these from their soil, shake free all the debris and put them in a dark, cool spot for 60ish days to try to send them into dormancy.  I have about 75 or so days befor

When you plant a series of Amaryllis bulbs in November , they tend to go off on different schedules.  At least that's been my experience.  And that's one of the big reasons that I like to plant a variety of bulbs - so we get blooms throughout Winter.  In my ideal outcome, I'd see blooms starting the week of Christmas.  Then, carrying all the way through January and parts of February.   This year?  That's exactly what we've seen.   Are all of them still blooming now - in February?  Nope.  Just one.  The Lemon Star .  It was the slowest starter.  But now?  It is the last one left and is getting its time in the spotlight (meaning...it is the only one on our kitchen counter right now).   These bulbs and some of the tending that I'm doing to our houseplants is a good bridge through the dark, cold Winter in terms of gardening.   Below, you can see the blooms on the shorter of the two stalks that emerged this Winter.  Lovely green centers.   The last time that I posted

All three of the containers are up with flower stalks, but the Red Tiger and the Sunshine Nymph are well ahead of the Lemon Star.  In just two weeks since my last photo update on these Christmas flowers, the buds on these two have opened wide and the flowers are beginning to unfurl.  Pacing-wise, these two are ahead of last year's version, but the Lemon Star is noticeably behind AND also pretty skinny and lean.  I'm not expecting a H U G E flower explosion from the Lemon Star (based on the bud size), but we should get flowers well into January this way - so I suppose that's a win of sorts.   Also, a note for the diary here, I began to water them with a 10:1 water:rubbing alcohol (91%) when they were about six inches tall.  I'm unsure if it had any impact on them what-so-ever.  

Earlier this week, I posted photos of the three tags of the Amaryllis bulbs that we selected for Christmas 2021 .  We went with a few smaller, more common Red Lions and two larger (more expensive) flowers - one red/white (Sunshine Nymph) and the other one greenish (Lemon Star).  That means that this year we have five total bulbs planted up.  Below, is a look at all of them after a couple of days in the soil. The trio of Red Lions (on the right) are in a low, wide pot.  We topped that one with a little moss and a couple of rocks.  The Lemon Star is in the slightly smaller pot on the back left.  That, one too, has moss.  The largest bulb (Sunshine Nymph) is in the larger pot with no moss. Below is a look at the Lemon Star.  This is the one that The Bird picked out and is the only one of the five that hasn't gotten started just yet.  Still dormant.   Below is a closer look at the trio of Red Lions.  All three of these have small green shoots that have emerged from the bulb. And, final

One of the first 'moments' that kicks off the holiday season each year for me is the annual purchase and planting of Amaryllis bulbs (or what my kids call: "Christmas Flowers").  Normally, I buy a couple of varieties - some from big box stores and some from Wannamaker's.  This past weekend, I was at Home Depot and found what you normally find at big box stores:  Amaryllis kits.  That's a bulb, a little pot and a disc of 'soil' that expands when you add water.  I don't love those - especially since it seemed that when I opened the boxes for the kits, I noticed that the stalks had already emerged from the bulb, but due to being in the dark they were white(ish).  But, right next to the kits was a bin of bare bulbs - both Paper-whites and Amaryllis.  The Amaryllis bulbs were $7.99 - about half of what I normally pay for a high quality bulb.  I grabbed three of them.  And a low, wide clay container to plant all three.  Those three are all the same vari