Over the past winter I purchased and grew about 16 amaryllis bulbs and they mostly flowered but as I put them outdoors for the summer on a quarter round plant stand I noticed various disease signs like red blotches and irregular lines and colorless blotches in the leaves so after much inner turmoil I discarded about half of them! I know a little bit more, like what to avoid in buying bulbs but that is no promise that any new bulbs will be nonvirused. I looked on a local site that says to avoid wetting the nose of bulb to discourage red blotch. I won't buy anything that shows signs of rot.

Having said all this, is it worthwhile to still grow them?! Yesssss! I bought some seedling bulbs from a friend who is a orchid grower and also like the unusual in plants. He got the seeds from a friend and says they are a species type like papilio. My papilio has not bloomed so who knows what will happen!? You don't know unless you try. I will buy more bulbs this winter but try to be more selective in my choices.