Amaryllis Part 2 - Fixing problems with your amaryllis bulb

Sometimes you might get a bulb for a gift, or something goes awry while it's growing. Here's a guide to the most common issues you might encounter:

The bulb is already sprouted when you get it.
Soak it and plant it as soon as you can. The bulb needs to grow roots to support the green growth which is already growing using the stored food in the bulb. (Think of the onions which surprise you by sprouting in your cupboard!)

It has been weeks and no green is emerging from the top of the bulb. 
Is the bulb planted too deep? Remember you should have about 1/3 of the bulb above the soil line. Remove some of the soil around the top.
Is it overwatered? Push on the bulb just at the soil line. Is it slimy or squishy? If yes, it is rotting. Pull it out of the pot and see how bad the damage is. If there is some firmness and good roots, replant it and be especially careful of overwatering.
Is it really squishy? I suggest just throwing it away. Soon it will start to smell.

I have only leaves and no flower stem.  
Sometimes this just happens, at times a flower stem will form later. You have 2 options, toss it, or grow it like a houseplant.

It is leaning and starting to uproot from the soil.
Stake it in several places to support it and keep it from further uprooting.

The whole thing fell over and uprooted because of the weight of the flower. 
Gently loosen all the roots and pull it out of the pot. Dump the soil onto newspaper and replant the bulb much deeper. Stake it in several places, water it well, set it in less light for a day or 2 and then return it to it brighter location. This may shorten the life of the blossoms but you have saved the plant.

Amaryllis Part 1 - Growing an amaryllis bulb

Amaryllis bulbs are often seen and sold around Christmas. The unfortunate thing about receiving a Christmas amaryllis is that they take 7-10 weeks to sprout and bloom, so folks expecting a Christmas blossom will not get one. But amaryllis are rewarding to grow if you have patience.

Growing an amaryllis is quite straight forward if you keep in mind that your bulb, like all bulbs, is a dormant storehouse of food and takes some time to grow and bloom. Follow these steps to plant your bulb:

 

Preparation

Picking a pot is important. The bulb doesn’t expand outward much but the roots will go deep. Grow the bulb in a pot that is slightly larger than the bulb – maybe 1” larger on all sides. Unless you have a miniature variety, amaryllis get tall – up to 18” or more, and the flower stalk is heavy. So a heavy, deep pot will be useful to balance the weight of the flower.

• Put the bulb in a shallow bowl, wide end down. The roots will emerge from the wide end and the flower and leaves from the narrower top.

• Fill the bowl about ½ way up the bulb with lukewarm water. Don’t submerge the bulb. You just want to rehydrate the root end and “wake up” the cells that will form new roots.

• Let the bulb soak for a few hours. 

• Pot the damp bulb in a nutrient-rich potting soil, leaving about 1/3 of the top of the bulb exposed.

• Water the soil thoroughly at the start. After that, only water when the top 1” of soil is dry. The bulb will easily rot if it is overwatered at this stage. It is forming roots and not using much water. 

In several weeks the bulb will send up a bud and leaves. It will start using more water at that point, so water more frequently. The flower stem will often appear before any leaves. It is thick and sturdy and grows very rapidly, which I always find fun to observe. 

Amaryllis bloom image from Wikimedia.

Starting when the bud is well-developed, keep the soil moist throughout the flowering. At this point, you can use a balanced, water soluble (think blue) fertilizer in a slightly dilute concentration, maybe half-strength, when you water.

Placement and Staking

• Put the newly planted bulb in a place where it will get bright light, preferably direct sun, but not on a window sill. Amaryllis like warm temperatures day and night (always above 60° but warmer is better). Find a spot near a window but away from the cold. 
• When the bud stem is a couple of inches tall, it is important to rotate the pot every couple of days to keep it from growing towards the sun. This encourages upright growth and keeps the flower stalk from leaning. 
• The flowering stem may need to be staked and supported. Bamboo stakes are commonly used, but find something long enough to go deep into the pot and up most of the length of the stem. Push it into the soil between the bulb and the pot and secure the stem to the stake a couple of inches below the flower. I suggest using twine instead of a wire, which can easily damage the stem if it is too tight. 
• If you are lucky you may get 2 flowering stems. Remove the faded flowers one by one as they wilt.

Stay tuned for more information on troubleshooting your amaryllis and taking care of it after it blooms. 

Holiday poinsettias

Poinsettias, more than any other flower, represent an American holiday. Through intensive breeding and selection, new colors seem to appear yearly. None of the pale colors appeal to me the way that the strong reds do, but there are creative uses of all colors in most public buildings in December. These plants are amazingly easy to care for - which may be part of their popularity. They come in all sizes for home buyers, from teacup to 3-4’ bushes, covered in flowers.

Keep these points in mind when you pick a plant. All commercially produced poinsettias come from perfect conditions in the nursery – the right humidity, light, and fertilizer. When they are displayed at the store, they often do not get the best care.

Look for a poinsettia that shows no sign of wilting. As I mentioned in an earlier post, pick a plant from the center where it has been somewhat protected from the changed environment. Don’t buy one from a display near the front doors. These plants have been exposed to the cold as the doors open and close to let customers in.

One of the most important steps in taking care of them is how you get them into your house. If possible, get a poinsettia that still has it plastic protective wrapping on it. In any case, cover the plant completely when you take it into the cold air on your way to the car.

At-home care is simple. Usually the pot comes encased in a spiffy wrapper. This needs to have a hole poked into the bottom so the water can drain. If I can’t remove the pot from the wrapper, I just grab a pointed knife and poke around on the bottom of the pot until I hit one of the holes in the plastic pot. Then I rotate the knife to make a larger hole. I would recommend doing this over the sink in case there is standing water in the bottom. (If there is, don’t water the plant for a day or two. The soil is probably saturated and it will continue to drain for a bit.)

Once you have a hole, you will need to put a pot saucer or some kind of protection under the pot now to protect your furniture.

If you don’t plan to keep the plant past Christmas time, you can put it almost anywhere. Otherwise, follow the instructions on the “plant care” tag. This usually says ‘strong light but not direct sun’ and ‘avoid placing the plant near heat vents’ where the excess heat or blowing hot air will damage the plant.

Don’t let it wilt. It has a lot of foliage that is continually using and losing water, so check it daily until you see how often it needs more water. If it isn’t a gigantic plant, you might lift the pot to feel the weight. Naturally, a dry pot is very lightweight – an indicator that more water is needed.

The actual flower is the kind of fuzzy growths in the center. These will usually fall off in a couple of weeks.

The red petals are actually modified leaves called bracts and unless the plant has been damaged, these will stay on the plant for quite a while. Eventually though, the plant will only have green leaves.

People often ask if they can get their pet-poinsettias to turn red again. This process takes a lot of time and effort because you have to put the plant into total darkness for half of every day for several months to simulate winter daylight and nighttime. For specifics, you can check out directions from Growing a Greener World or Gardening Know How.

For me, as cheap as poinsettias are, I just save the effort and buy a gorgeous new one every December.

Ornamental kale

If you haven’t ever planted the ornamental kales that are available in the fall, you should consider putting some in a protected area and enjoying their unusual colors and texture. They are cool-season plants and thrive during the cooler days of autumn. I have seen them elongate when they are planted in spots that are too warm. But if you keep them cool (mine is in light shade except for late afternoon) they will usually stay low and compact.

Chrysanthemum fall sales

Image from chezbeate

Just a quick note about chrysanthemums... In the same way that you can plant faded bulbs that you bought in bloom, chrysanthemums move easily into the garden once you have enjoyed them in pots.

Check at the soil line. Some of the large pots have several plants in them. Although you can plant them as is, it would be better in the long term if you separate them and plant them individually. Cut off the flowers and a bit of the leafy stem, tease the roots apart (it sometimes takes a bit of muscle), and plant them as deep as the existing soil line. Remember to keep them watered if the winter is dry because they won’t have much time to regrow their roots.

Several of those I have planted over the last couple of years maintained their half-a-basketball rounded shape. Others reverted to the more traditional upright growth pattern. There is an amazing amount of variation in the greenhouse grown chrysanthemums, but it is mostly in their growth patterns. I haven’t seen many color changes from the traditional chrysanthemums that my mom used to grow. For comparison, think of the color varieties you find in petunias. Whatever determines chrysanthemum color is not as easy for plant breeders to tinker with.

Wintering succulents in containers

My pot of succulents sits near my garden during the summer. Something has germinated in the free space and I don’t know what it is. I bring this pot in for the winter because I don’t want the pot to break when it freezes.

I don’t know why but I am always surprised when a succulent changes color in response to fall weather. But I like it and leave the pot out until it is consistently cold. Because these plants are outdoor succulents, I put the pot in my unheated garage and sharply reduce the frequency of watering. 

Our winter sun isn’t strong enough to keep new growth from getting leggy. If it gets less water, this will slow down growth.  I don’t know how the seedlings will react and I may have to give them a bit more water until I see what they are. That will be a fun winter observation.

An easy winter garden

Late summer is the time to make a winter garden. Mine is quite simple, based on a cold frame - easier, but less reliable in the coldest months.

I found a double-paned window at a thrift store and I build the "cold frame" around its dimensions. I use sandstone garden edging leftover from the previous owner. You can use bricks or pavers for this, too. You want something that will absorb daytime heat and release it during the cold night, so boards or anything made of wood is less effective for my rudimentary design. However, there are numerous ways to build an actual cold frame, so if you have more get-up-and-go than me, check out the web. 

The edges don’t fit smoothly together so there are drafts. This works during the warmer fall days because I don’t always get out to get the window off the stones and the openings let the heat out. I do have to remember to water more often when it heats up in my little garden.

I plant kale and spinach, both of which have produced leaves for me over most of the winter – not enough for a family of 8 but certainly enough to add to a salad. And the leaves you are removing aren’t much bigger than 4-8". Ok, this is more of an adventure than actual food production but harvesting even a few greens in January is reassuring. 

When the weather gets colder, I will move these stones together, sacrificing a few plants which get squished. There will still be drafts, so in the depth of winter, I sometimes cover the whole thing with a beach towel at night. Last winter, the towel and garden were covered with deep snow for more than a week, so no sun made it through. Neither type of plant showed any signs of stress when they finally got some sun again. 

Comes spring, I dismantle it in about 20 seconds.  

Fall garden update

The weather this fall has been so warm that some seed is germinating prematurely and spring bulbs are being faked into sprouting. I will be interested to see how the bulbs do next spring because I have no doubts that we are in for months of regular winter temperatures and snow.

I sprinkle seed around my garden after deadheading and most of the newly germinated seedlings will not survive. But Mother Nature has methods for species survival, so I expect there will be some seed which did not germinate and will emerge comes spring. 

The lack of repeated killing frosts had allowed a number of my perennials to do an unusually slow decline into dormancy. The visual interest in my fall yard has never been better.

My garden at the end of August

In mid-October

The hose is out because Colorado finally made rain barrels legal and so I put one on both of the downspouts that carry most of the roof drainage. The main difficulty with my present set-up is that our rain comes infrequently but fast, heavier than my system can handle and the barrels overflow. If I am home, I can let water out through the attached hoses during the storms. Of course, I get wet. 

The amount of rainwater that drains off my roof is amazing and makes it worth the effort. By directing the water, I can deep-water my trees for free. I dismantled the system for winter, and will tweak the set-up before next spring so I have more overflow catchment in place.
 
My chipped wood path blew away during a big wind storm that took down trees. For the most part I like this path, even though it is messy when there's wind. However, the price was right (less than $10 for a truckload) and a bit of raking will pull the chips out of the garden and back to where they belong.

At the end of October

You can how the large ornamental grasses, which are inconspicuous in the August picture, are now an important addition to the visual interest.  

I have added a small section of plastic trellis to camouflage the area where I will store pots and equipment over the winter. The shed is for tools, my lawn mower and other items that need to be under cover for the winter. The trellis is quite (too?) flexible and needs support. I may opt to replace it with sturdier wooden trellis next summer.