I love Amaryllises. When the company I work for was in our "old" building (we've been where we are now for 18 years) I had a south facing office with an ten foot wide by eight foot tall window. There was a nice wide brick windowsill. The first year I worked there I bought an Amaryllis bulb from the grocery store and put it on my desk. Every year I'd get another one. I'd buy them on sale at the end of the season, when they were marked down. I figured out early on how to get them to come back every year**, so after I'd been there eight years I had a big collection and my coworkers used to come to see them every day. One year I had a red one that had two stems (a rarity) with six huge blossoms on each stem. I have pictures, but they're packed away.
When the company moved to the new building I was in a cube farm with no windows. The Amaryllises languished. With a pair of cats at home growing a tall plant was risky too.
My new house has a wall facing south, with very good light, so when the garden catalogs started arriving at Christmas offering beautiful varieties of Amaryllises I'd never seen before, I had to indulge.
They were almost prohibitively expensive - at least three times what the ones in the grocery store cost - but each of them have had three stalks of flowers, and the fourth has two, so that was a real bonus.
One of them grew spectacularly tall right away, three stalks of beautiful striped flowers.
I had to order special stakes to hold them up. It's a good thing. The stake on this one is 16" tall and as you can see, it barely reaches high enough!
This beauty is called "Santiago", and although the flower itself is smaller than the normal Amaryllis blossom, it's quite spectacular.
Here it is next to another one. The striped ones tend to bloom first, then the whites, and the reds are the slowest. The one on the right is a deep red one and as you can see that has three stalks as well. I can't wait to see that one, but it has been a real pleasure to have these growing in the house and blooming during these cold months.
**UPDATE... 9:00 PM....
Here is a link with information to get your Amaryllis to bloom again
next year.
Click here.
I bought these four Amaryllis bulbs from
White Flower Farm.
9 comments:
I take it Millie is not bothering these beauties? They really are spectacular blooms.
I love Amaryllise and these are real beauties. I moved last year and probably discarded my 'solution' to the tall stems - tall, heavy, clear containers that prevented the plant falling over and contained the long stems. I have NOT however been able to convince them to bloom again. Want to share your secret? My new digs have lots of good light not sure if it is south but there's lots of it!!
I love the 5th picture with the quilt on the sofa, the reflection in the picture, the picture itself,... Beautiful colors on the flower that blends so nicely with the background.
And you must have a very well behaved cat!
Megan
Sydney, Australia
Purrty, Miss Millie better leave them alone!
They are stunning. A friend of mine has so many, in a row, and all deep red. When they are flowering together it is a wonderful show. Well done to get those outstanding blooms.
These are so beautiful! I just love Amaryllises!
Beautiful! Something stunted the growth of my amaryllis...it only got to be about 8" tall, but it has four beautiful blooms on it!
Wow, those are beautiful! Especially those striped flowers! I grew some when I lived in CA and had good light. I wish I could have some amaryllis now, but I don't have good light and now I have a cat that chews plants. Even silk ones! So I'll just have to enjoy yours.
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