How to Grow and Care for Amaryllis Flower Year Around

Do you know that you can purchase Amaryllis FLower at any stage of development?

For a lot of gardeners, growing amaryllis flowers is a fun process, from a bulb.

Moreover, it tends to bloom about 8 to 10 weeks after planting. These are big bulbs that are easy to bring into bloom and even a beginner can plant them easily

Like daffodils or tulips, the amaryllis flower starts out as a bulb, and you can find them as a part of a kit that contains the bulb, a heavy pot, and some growing medium.

The growing medium in ideal cases is a sterile soulless pointing mix.

These naturally spring-blooming bulbs produce flowers at some point between late winter and mid-spring.

However, many gardeners are commonly forced to bloom earlier in winter, in time for the winter holidays.

After the flowers die back, the large leaves of the plant soak up sunlight for the rest of the season which provides them energy so that they can bloom again.

Keep on reading.

Amaryllis Flower

Like many people, you can grow amaryllis bulbs to have plants that bloom indoors in winter.

Though the bulbs can bloom at different times of the year.

Amaryllis flower is often a hybrid. form various species in the Hippeastrum genus, a group of tropical plants from Central or South America.

Moreover, there is also a true Amaryllis genus that contains just two species that are native to South Africa.

These are, however, not the amaryllis plants that are commonly cultivated in the U.S.

Furthermore, these plants have strappy leaves and huge flowers that are shaped like trumpet lilies.

The blooms are often of deep red, pink, white, or a blend of these colors.

You can expect your plant to bloom for seven weeks or longer.

Amaryllis has components in the bulbs, leaves, and stems that are toxic to people and pets.

Learn more about Poisonous Plants for Pets here.

Quick Facts about Amaryllis Flower

Some quick facts about the amaryllis flower are:

Amaryllis Flower Care

The way you care for your plant tends to vary, depending on whether you are growing them indoors or outdoors, and when you want them to bloom.

Caring for Amaryllis Indoors in Spring and Summer

In order to bring your amaryllis flower and care when indoors, you will need to partially fill a five to seven-inch pot with a quality, well-draining sandy loam potting mix.

Then, you will need to plant the amaryllis bulb so that the top third is exposed when you fill in the rest of the pot with potting mix.

Moreover, it is important to plant that plant 10 to 12 weeks before you want them to bloom.

Place a bamboo stick along the bulbs and the flowers can get top-heavy.

Thus, inserting a stake at the time of planting can help you avoid any damage to the bulbs and roots later.

When you grow the plant indoors, the amaryllis flower tends to prefer direct morning sun but indirect light in the afternoon.

It is important that you keep the soil moist but not wet. A thick flower stalk tends to shoot up within a few weeks after you plant it.

The flat leaves will follow as the flower stalk matures.

Make sure to turn the pot every few days, so that the flower stalk receives uniform sunlight on all sides and grows straight.

Caring for Amaryllis Indoors in Fall and Winter

Like many people, you can purchase amaryllis bulbs and pot them in the fall so that they can bloom over the winter holidays.

If you are doing this, you will simply need to follow the setup stems that you use for spring planting.

However, if you want to care for the amaryllis flower year-round, you will need to take some specific amaryllis care steps after flowering.

This will help to encourage those winter blooms again.

After the flower bloom, you will need to cut back the flower stalk but allow the foliage to continue growing.

Moreover, you can also place the plant outdoors in summer in partial shade if you want.

Make sure to water your plant whenever the top two inches of the soil feels dry and feed it with a half-strength water-soluble fertilizer every two to three weeks.

Then stop seeding the plant in August, and bring the plant indoors.

Its foliage will depreciate, however, you should never expose the plant to frost.

Cut back any depreciated amaryllis leaves. At this point, it is time to expose your plant to dark conditions, so move them to a cool, dry indoor spot at 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Make sure that it does not receive any light.

Also, stop watering your plant, either at this point or 10 to 12 weeks before when you want your plant to bloom, if you want to make it bloom during the winter holidays.

It is important to note that the lack of foliage and water tends to induce the amaryllis plant to send out another flower stalk.

You can then resume watering at this time and move the plant to a warm, sunny indoor spot.

Leaves tend to appear again and bloom will soon follow.

After flowering, make sure to withhold feeding for eight to ten weeks to induce the dormancy your plant needs to reset the bulbs.

Caring for Amaryllis Outdoors

In USDA hardiness zones 8 to 10, you can grow amaryllis flowers outdoors.

You can grow the bulbs in well-draining, fertile soil, and plant them whenever the soil temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit or above.

Moreover, amaryllis is a tropical plant and prefers to thrive in warm temperatures.

It tends to grow in full sun to part shade conditions, however, bright shade is the best environment outdoors.

In case your area is entirely frost-free, you can plant the bulbs with their necks at or slightly above ground level.

However, in areas where frost is possible, plant the bulbs with five to size inches of soil above them, followed by five to six inches of mulch.

Then water thoroughly after planting, however, water only when the top inches of the soil feels dry later.

After the leaves appear, feed your plant with a balanced fertilizer once per month through bloom.

When flowering is complete, remove the flower stalk but keep the foliage to continue growing.

However, if any leaves turn yellow, make sure to cut them off.

In fall, you will need to apply a layer of winter mulch if your area has winter frost and the plant often goes dormant over winter.

Types of Amaryllis

It is important to note that there are dozens of different amaryllis varieties, and the choice depends on the flower colors that you like.

Some recommended varieties are:

‘Samba’: This one has large, rd ruffled blooms with white markings.

‘Apple Blossom’: This is a popular variety that has mixed pink and white with green throats.

‘Faro’: This variety has delicate flowers in pale salmon and white color.

Moreover, the blooms tend to be smaller and more delicate than most varieties.

‘Summertime’: This plant has large seven-inch blooms in a unique watermelon pink to dark rose hue with greenish centers.

‘Matterhorn’: This one is a good choice for pure white amaryllis while its throats are yellow-green.

Pruning and Propagating Tips and Techniques

When the flower fades away, you will need to cut the flower stalk back to just above the bulb.

Make sure to keep watering the plant until it goes dormant in the fall.

You can move your plant outdoors for the summer and place it in a partial shade location.

It is important to note that amaryllis bulbs tend to produce side bulbs just like daffodils multiply.

You can remove these bulbils carefully and pot them to produce more plants once the parent plant goes dormant and its bloom has died.

Do this in late winter to early spring for outdoor plants and fall for indoor plants.

Give your bulbils a few seasons of growth before expanding flowers.

Here is how you can do it:

• with the help of a spade, carefully remove the entire plant from the flower bed or container
• remove the soil from around the bulb and any roots
• twist the bulbils away from the parent bulb to separate them, however, if there are not disconnecting easily, you can use a knife to split them apart
• make sure to keep any roots on the bulbils intact and do not take any small bulbils from the parent bulb
• then replant the parent bulbs in the same spot in the garden bed or container
• plant them in prepared containers that contain rich potting soil, leaving about 1/3 inch of the top of the bulb visible above the soil
• the container should allow a maximum of two inches from the bulb to the side of the container
• place the container indoors in a sunny location and water to soil to keep it moist but not soggy
• you can see new growth in three to four weeks

Overwintering Amaryllis Flower

When you have amaryllis flowers in the SUDA hardiness zones 8 to 10, you can leave them as-is for inter.

However, in zone 7, you can overwinter your plant in the garden by applying a heavy layer of mulch.

While in other zones, you will need to store its bulbs for the next year by carefully removing the bulb from the garden bed.

And then place them in a cool, dry, and dark spot.

Common Pests and Plant Diseases

It is important that you should be on the lookout for pests like spider mites and mealybugs.

You can treat them with the help of horticultural oil.

While outdoors that plant can be feated on by slugs and snails.

Moreover, your plant can also be infected with red blotch and mosaic virus.

Red blotch tends to spread rapidly from bulb to bulb and looks like reddish brown spots on the leaves, bulb, and scape.

While any plant with the mosaic virus tends to show less blooming and growth.

And the leaves will also have a yellow streaking on them.

It is important to note that there is nothing that you can do about the above two diseases.

Getting your Plant to Bloom

When you are growing an amaryllis flower in a frost-free garden, i.e. USDA hardiness zones 8 to 10, the plant will naturally bloom in March, April, and May with a fall rebloom possible.

However, you can purchase the amaryllis bulb to grow as potted plants for the holiday season.

This is only possible if you plant the dormant bulbs at precisely the right time about 10 to 12 weeks before the desired bloom time.

When you buy commercial bulbs for holiday bloom, you will need to keep these dormant bulbs in a cool, dark, and dry spot until the right planting time.

However, if you have already potted the plant, you can control the rebloom by setting the plant outdoors to grow through the summer and then bringing it indoors.

This will force them to plant into a short period of dormancy by withholding water and fertilizer for a few weeks, and then restarting the bulbs.

It is important to note that if your plant does not bloom, it is often when it receives no rest period after the last bloom or because it is not receiving adequate light.