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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Smith & Hawken: Amaryllis Bulb Kit

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! For Christmas, I received an Amaryllis Bulb kit from Smith and Hawken. It contained a Minerva Amaryllis bulb.


The bulb was pretty good sized and there were leaves trying to start.


What I found baffling was that after I poured three cups of water into the pot and came back after an hour, I saw that the 'growing medium' didn't even come up halfway. I used a butter knife to stir it and the growing medium was mostly soggy and only came up halfway in the pot.


So I re-read the directions in case I missed anything. I didn't know if I had to add something beforehand.


Even the illustration shows that the pod was supposed to fill up the pot.


Lucky for me, I remembered some pellets from a mini-greenhouse that never got used and tossed in about eleven of them to fill the rest of the pot.

Voila! A potted Amaryllis.

Besides the lack of growing medium, what makes me nervous is how the pot has no holes. It has three little "rubber-stops" on the bottom to prevent the bottom of the pot from scratching the surface.

I guess as long as I just keep it moist and not wet, it should be fine until I get it into the ground come next spring.

Still hoping to get my hands on a white amaryllis but it seems they're not easily found for some reason.

11 comments:

  1. I planted my Christmas gift S & H Amaryllis bulb on Dec. 28, 2011. Now six weeks later, I have five beauctiful, healthy-looking, green, tall "leafs", but no sign of any flower, or a spike with a potential flower.
    What now?

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  2. It probably means that it won't bloom this year. My bulb did the same thing. It sent out big beautiful leaves but no flowers.

    I read a thread where everyone shared their experiences with the kits and it appears that most bulbs had bloomed while in the packages at stores.

    This thread here has a picture of the blooms growing out of the packages.

    After finding this out, I asked the person that got me the kit. It turns out that the kits at the store were indeed dealing with blooms pushing out but she purchased the kit that didn't have any blooms because "it'd be hard to wrap with two scapes sticking out".

    I have no experience with growing amaryllis in containers so I don't know how to force them into dormancy when the time comes. I live in Zone 8 which means I can plant the amaryllis bulb into the ground when spring comes and it can stay out all year long where it'll be the happiest.

    Right now, the leaves are storing energy in the bulb so make sure your amaryllis is getting all the sun it can get in a south facing window and fertilize it regularly with a fertilizer that's low in nitrogen.

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  3. I purchased the bulb kit today (11/27/12). The soil spread out fine. My question is it came in a burlap bag firmly glued inside the pot. Am I to put the soil into the bag and grow the plant in the bag/pot?
    rosepo

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    Replies
    1. This is my question exactly! Did you find out the answer to your question??? Please reply to jlwv@hotmail.com

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  4. The lack of drain holes caused some root rot. I ended up with a bunch of gnats in my house and used insecticidal soap. Hopefully I can put it out in the yard soon here in zone 9.

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  5. Mine only required 2 cups of water for the original potting soil mixture - maybe that was a misprint? Thanks so much for taking the time to post this, I have not worked with bulbs before... so not quite sure how deep to plant it.

    Happy Gardening!
    deZengo

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  6. I bought one for myself and one for my mother in law in FL over two years ago. Neither of ours flowered, she had to transplant hers to a larger pot because it grew HUGE leaves. After 2 years it is finally starting to flower... It doesn't look like the Amaryllis flowers on google... not sure what type of bulb they have ACTUALLY included in the kits...

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  7. Terri (Duluth, MN)June 7, 2016 at 3:52 PM

    I received an amaryllis fora gift and although I too don't feel I got enough soil, I planted it. 5 beautiful flowers bloomed. I look forward to keeping it cool and dark for a few months to see if I can get it to bloom again!

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  8. Thank you DragonStone for the picture of the growing instructions. Have never had bulbs before and my kit came with NO instructions other than for the potting medium. Your picture gave it to me!

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  9. Mine didn't come with any instructions either. What a rip off

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  10. I too have long leaves but no flower..very disappointed.

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