There are several reasons they night not have flowered.

They are tropical or subtropical and do not like cold ground - if your ground was too cold for their liking it would have delayed flowering considerably. Mine are grown in pots and flower in late June to early July.

The bulb might have been attacked by narcissus bulb flies. The adult lays eggs near the base of the leaf and the grubs work their way to the base of the bulb where they begin to eat and destroy it. They are a major pest and have destroyed almost all of my Amaryllids. Either now, or when you lift the bulb, look for damage to the basal plate - this is usually fairly obvious with soft mushy areas, no or few roots, and possibly a small hole being visible, and of course, there will be grubs. There are two sorts of narcissus bulb flies, the regular and lesser one - the regular one is harder to spot even though the grub is quite large. The grub almost always burrows into the centre of the bulb and eats from the inside out, while the lesser narcissus bulb fly grubs usually eat from the outside in. Some affected bulbs will be salvageable, if you are very careful, but most will be too damaged to bother with.

It's also possible you were sold bulbs too small for blooming - this is a pretty rare thing to do but it happens.

When you lift the bulbs (keeping the roots intact), inspect closely for damage from narcissus bulb flies. If you find none, then allow the leaves to die back on their own (do not cut them off) and store in peat moss of something similar. Next spring, plant them into pots in mid to late April. Place them outside in the sun and bring them in at night, until the nights are pushing 10C. Keep them in the pots as long as you can, preferably until June, then you can plant them in the ground. In their natural environment they can tolerate some/a fair bit of shade, but because we are so far north for them, they will prefer a mostly sunny area.

BP

Thanks for the reply Bonnie. I did plant them in large pots about mid April to encourage growth inside and then gradually transitioned them to the outside into a very sunny spot. These were just bulbs from stores that sell them in the spring, so could of been small. As this was my first time growing them I had no idea how big they should be. I will look for attacks by the narcissus bulb flies you mentioned. I'm assuming I should wait till the frost to dig them, like other tender bulbs and roots.

If they were the Simple Pleasures ones that are so common now, they were probably blooming size. Blooming sized ones should be an inch and a half to two inches across - most of the SP ones I've seen are at least that size. Ebay vendors are usually the ones you have to watch out for for the smaller ones :-)

Since you're in 5b you're a little bit warmer than me, so you may be able to leave them out a bit later than I do. It will vary from year to year, but I don't allow the frost to touch them - I usually bring them in when nights start going below 5C. Usually that's late September to early October for me

I sure hope it's not narcissus bulb flies. I've had to stop buying any of their targets because they are a horrible pest for me. I lost the last four of one sort of Hymenocallis this summer - I have three of a slightly different sort left and I expect to lose them soon too :-(

Another thought occurred to me - how did you store them after you bought them? A lot of people will store bulbs in the fridge, but the ethylene gas produced by some fruit can occasionally cause flower abortion in bulbs. If you (or the store) stored them near something like that it could be a possible culprit.

If they're undamaged, then you can just try again next year - you might find that the bulbs will have put off a fair number of offsets so you can eventually have lots more to experiment with.

For the most part they're not a fragile bulb or plant and can tolerate a fairly wide variety of growing conditions. Mine grow on the dry side, but they can be found along streambeds in the wild. Something will work for you. It's so worth it when you see and smell the flowers - they're fantastic!

BP

I have both the white and yellow hymenocallis, the white variety for three years and the yellow for two. The white has never flowered for me. I start them in March and grow in pots for the whole summer. The yellow ones have flowered nicely but still nothing with the white. I'm beginning to think I just got some bum bulbs. No sign of pests that I can see and they certainly multiply. i will try them one more time and then to the compost pile they go if they do not perform!

Hi crafty gardener, your story sounds exactly like mine (except I'm a bit colder than you and started my bulbs a bit later). Bought my bulbs at Home Depot (I know, I'm cheap!) and thought I'd give them a try, as I'd read they have a gorgeous fragrance.

Well, I haven't had much time to devote to them (just had my third child) but they have lots of lovely foliage just no flowers. They've been in a pot in full sun all summer. I'll definitly check for damage when I dig them up, and I'll think I'll try again next summer, but it would be nice to have them flower next time! Else, 2008 will be my last try!

I'm going to dig mine and look for damage, and if they seem okay, I'll plant them again next spring and hope that they bloom ... if not, it's the compost pile for them!!

I have been growing them for years

I leave some in large pots , very large pots and just bring the entire pot into the basement , leaving it to dry out completely and not particularly in light I put them out the entire pot, late April and they always flower

I have put them directly into the garden, though, as they multiply so much they as well mostly do bloom

I had one yellow one, but have recently moved and don't remember where I put it. maybe in one of the pots or somewhere

Sometimes it seems one needs to cut back But it is difficult to do so when there is always more that you want to try