A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 Time to put your Amaryllis to sleep!

For those of you who have grown your Amaryllis plants and are hoping to rebloom them for the holiday season (How many shopping days 'til Christmas?!), now is the time to put them into dormancy for the next eight weeks.

Completely stop all watering and let the green leaves gradually yellow and die back. Don't worry, this won't kill the plant. In fact, you can take your Amaryllis and put it in a cool, dry, dim , out of the way location and forget about it for two months. The leaves can be trimmed off when then turn yellow or brown.

In two months, you can awaken your Amaryllis plants by giving the soil a thorough soaking. About 3 weeks later you should have some beautiful flowers. Without the dormant period they will not flower.

Happy holidays!

Will......its humid here,where would be a good spot to park my babies? my envelopes even self seal themselvers.....all 4 boxes.i give up buying them.is even humid indoors..LOL
I've moved them into garage.shop area as is dark most the time,but have peat to store in when go dormat all the way& have a "bag" of gel thinggy from box of shock it I use on pool...ummm in pool sorry

wasn't problem last year,was not humid in NETXbut is here

njoynit,

The important thing is to stop watering. The humidity shouldn't be a problem.

Will

ok you probally think i'm a dummy, i got an amarylis for christmas last year it bloomed and every thing i put it in a dark place and then forgot about it until yesterday which means that it has been in the closet for about six months or so, the question is do you think it is dead? if i water it and put it in the sun do you think it will come back?

well my cat knocked my christmas cactis off drersser to beind it for maybe 7-9 months and watered it and it survived it just kinda looked real deprived.its was kinda pale looking but is all fine now it even flowered right afterwards like it had been in dormancy even though we just limit them naturally on light...ya gotta watch them kittys,they just think they own everything..LOL

Iowadahlia - Take it out and give the soil a good soaking. You will probably see some new leaf growth with a few weeks. However, it is unlikely to flower because you have not renewed the bulb since it last flowered. If you just get leaf growth, then move it to a sunny windowsill and keep it as a foliage plant until the end of next summer. That will restore the bulb. Then give it 8 weeks of dormancy.

THANK-YOU so much i felt terrible about just forgetting him in the closet.