Matt,
Mine grow much larger during the spring thru fall. Make sure they have lots of room to grow, adequate water and sun. Miracle Gro fertilizer helps too!
There is a fine line between good care and killing them with kindness.

I'd repot them to larger pots, and as soon as there is no danger of frost, set them out where they get morning sun and afternoon shade, by the end of next year, you'll be amazed!!
K

kaboehm,

That is exactly what my green thumb instinct has been telling me. Everyone says to pot them up with about 1 inch of space between the bulb and the sides of the pot. That is how I usually pot them up, but I leave them in the smaller pot all summer. This past summer (mid summer) I repotted them in 1 gal garden containers I have saved from other plants. I did give them some Miracle Gro and they really started looking better. I wish I had put them in the larger pots much early. I will be, for sure, planting them in larger pots for the summer from now on. What size of pot do you use during flowering indoors?

If anyone else has ideas, please let me know.

Thanks,
Indiana.Matt
Matthew

Another route you might take is to plant them in a whiskey barrel for the summer. I have lots of them around the yard and I find that since you fill them with your own soil and fertilizer that you don't get any insect damage as you do if you were to plant them directly in the ground (which I have done also). I fit 8 to 10 bulbs per barrel you can put them quite close as the roots have lots of room to go down.

I leave some in pots, in the ground and in barrels. Especially if you're going to re-pot them anyway you might give it a thought for some of your bulbs.

It's much easier to regulate the water in a barrel, one soaking a week is sufficient where as in pots ( I use clay) they might need more attention. Amaryllis are heavy feeders so I buy a bulb booster type of fertilizer to mix in the soil( stay away from one with bone meal as it will attract skunks and raccoons) and I supplement with liquid Miracle Grow now and then too... Good luck and hope you get some nice fat bulbs next fall!

Donna

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Just something else to think about!!

Donna,

Those look absolutely beautiful!!!!! I do this for my Ismene but I never thought of doing it for the hippies. After you dig them up, do you let them dry out a bit or do you pot them up?

Warm Regards,
Fred

Actually Fred, I had about 7 barrels of bulbs (only the tip of the iceberg) which I let dry on the living room floor on a tarp until the leaves turned brown. It took at least a month and then I did as Kristi suggests..cut the necks down with a knife dipped in alcohol. Then after a few more days of drying ( I could have dusted with captan but, I didn't this year) I then put them in paper sandwich bags with their labels of course and then into large paper bags where they are now sitting in our garage. I will have to watch the temps as the weather gets colder and might have to move them to my father's cellar for the remainder of their snooze. I will take a peek at the end of Dec and then depending on what I find, I will pot them up.

I usually only put bulbs in the barrels that have been in their pots for 2 or more years and are in need of a re-potting anyway. Once these bulbs are re potted I will leave them in their pots for a couple of years and put others in the barrels.

Next year I am going to plant some of my seedlings in barrels as this year I put them in the ground and lost several varieties of seedlings to various insects.

There was no insect damage at all to any of the bulbs in the barrels...

I had several large bulbs planted directly in the ground and many of these I dug with huge root balls and re-potted them in pots. Some of them kept their green leaves and some of them went dormant anyway...
I'm always trying something different with some of my bulbs...I'm not always successful but I keep trying...!

I also have about 50 to 70 bulbs that are in their pots still and those will most likely be the ones that get their summer vacation in the barrels next year.

Donna

A "green thumb" is really just applied knowledge. My advice is to forget about what the industry standard says, and do a bit of research into the simple science of plant growth, and the physics of how medium, water, nutrition, and roots all interplay within the confines of containers.

With that said, Kristi is correct.

I, myself, would make a few slight changes from her regimen, but mainly because we have differing growing environments.

There really is no one-size-fits-all method for optimum growing, only because we each deal with differing variables such as climate, micro-environment, etc...

The keys, I think, are to understand why you do the things you do with regard to growing your bulbs, and understand how it all works at a simplified scientific level. In other words, what do container kept plants require, how does it differ from growing in the ground, what are the unique variables you have to deal with, etc...

You may want to pop over to the Container Growing Forum and do a bit of reading. There's a ton of great advice on potted plant requirements and variables over there.