It’s lovely when a hippeastrum decides to put up a bonus spike of flowers, isn’t it?

I got a second flower from my ‘Chico’ this summer which is just going over now but I think that will be the last for mine this year.

I also got a first flower from a seedling amaryllis which was a rather nice soft peachy colour but none of its siblings have flowered yet.

My first Amaryllis have practically finished now :-(( I have just one flower remaining. They were a deep red with no other colouring – even in their throats, which are often green.

Here is a close up photo of the last flower:

Here is a close up shot of my White with Red Veining Amaryllis whose flowers opened fully today.

Unfortunately my plants are coming to an end – once again! The white with red veining one is now dying. :,((

The red one had a small bud that was hidden behind the bigger flowers & has only opened during the last couple of days.

I’ve started bringing home the plants I took down to the allotment back in May. I wrote a journal on this a few days ago. I haven’t seen any more bulbs with buds in them any longer.

The Amaryllis bud in the post above has opened two flowers just today! They are red with a greenish-white stripe about half the length of the petals.

In the kitchen there is another bud about to open. It’s red on the outside at present & tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, I will find out if it’s solid red or has some white in it.

Last Saturday I was very surprised to find a bud about 15cm/6in tall in one of the pots on our bedroom windowsill! I hadn’t noticed it before then! Since then it has practically doubled in height! I don’t know what colour it will be at present but I’ll post a photo in a couple of weeks time when the flowers start to open.

They flower – naturally – at about the same time as Daffodils. But they can be fairly easily manipulated to flower at other times. The year my 50 seedlings started to flower it was in April/May. Since then they flower whenever it takes their fancy! Except for last year, when I tried to force them to go dormant by withholding all water from mid-September, I’ve never done anything to try to alter their flowering cycle. This year I’m doing the same as, except for those with buds, I’ve not given any of my plants any water since bringing them home from the allotment in mid-September.

That’s good to know. Thanks, Amarylis. I hate ‘forcing’ things. So stressful for the plants. I have that pot of seedling amaryllis and I have ten bulbs from previous years. I want to allow them to bloom when they want and April and May sound great. In June there are peonies and in July & August, lilies. Nothing big and showy in April and May so if I were to cut the stems, I could fill my new large, extremely beautiful, crystal vase with amaryllis. Oohhhh… so nice! Maybe not 2013 but 2014, here I come!

PS. I bought the vase at a discount store and I’m sure it’s worth a tonne more than I paid but it’s heavy and European made and gorgeous! Needs gorgeous flowers to really make it shine.

That’s okay. Similar to slow-type lilies.

How lucky can one get? About the time I last posted on here I found another of my bulbs was producing yet another bud! It had last flowered a few months before. This was an offset that is still in the same pot as the mother so I knew what colour it would be – red.

A few days ago we returned from our holiday in Spain, we went to be present when our first Spanish granddaughter was born. The next day while checking on the plants that had been abandoned for 2 weeks I came across yet another bulb that had a bud! I’d seen no sign of it when I checked the bulbs before leaving for Spain.

Anyway I’m including a photo of the two plants together in the window in our living room. One is now showing colour!

You are either going to love this post or you’re going to hate it but just yesterday I encountered yet another plant with a flowering stem, this time it was on our bedroom windowsill! You might think what’s so odd about that if I pot the pot here then it’s only natural that it should produce a flower stem there. What is surprising about this is that the stem was 20-30cm high when I discovered it! I’ve since moved it to our living room where it has joined the other two bulbs that have been flowering since November.

It’s exciting! You’ll have succession of blooms until spring! You are really lucky!

Just today I found another 3 bulbs with buds! :-))

The 1st was on the windowsill in our bedroom & the other two were in the kitchen!