I have been looking at catalogs also. Love the ones that doubled their price then give you 25 dollars off. Left you a post on your amaryllis site. You should see my bed of amaryllis in the spring. I went for years thinking they would not grow here.
Norm

I got two more seed catalogs in the mail today...yay! =) I think i'm gonna piut aside 100 or so and buy some seeds of course, but also some of the seedlings they sell too. I'm quite interested in mail order seedling purchases. They are all highly regarded company's like Gurney's. Anyone else have good luck with this and recommend a certain nursery for it?

- Steve

I love the church garden plan. I hope it is very bountiful for you. Norm, you have a bed of amaryllis? Can one of yall tell me what this plant is that I have from my Mom? It looks like a giant red amaryllis. The leaves are as long as my arm. When it bloomed it also kept the foliage. I set them out for the summer but brought them back in the house for fear of them dying. I would really like to know what it is. The flowers, stalks, and foliage look like amaryllis but they are softball size blooms.

Thanks for the information on amaryllis.

A church in my community started a community garden last year. Their blog hasn't been updated since May but I can send you contact info if you're interested in talking with someone in middle Tennessee who's worked on such a project.

Kathy,

I volunteered to aid a similar garden here in Spring Hill. The church that was involved tried to do something way to big against our garden club's advice. Originally it was designed to be a small kitchen garden to supplement a food pantry. The church got involved after they lost their plot of land to do their project and since they had a very detailed plan I let them take over. They insisted they had the volunteers to work it. Our garden club people helped to set things up and get everything rolling. We donated money and a considerable amount of time but the church volunteers and the food pantry volunteers stopped coming.

It's a great idea and with the right group of people would do very well. My advice is twofold:
1) Start small - don't bite off more than your group can chew.
2) Get your volunteers names in writing way ahead of time. Get phone numbers, times and days available to work, and set up a schedule. I would even assign individual people different beds or rows to maintain. At least then the responsible ones would have maintained their areas.

Those were my ideas for the garden here in Spring Hill this spring. Someone else took over and didn't get the volunteers lined up as was needed. Don't start something without some very committed people!

giant red amaryllis?
what you describe sounds like, (maybe) a st. josephs lily, which is an old pass-a-long perennial. i have never found them in nurseries or the big box stores. a co-worker and i tracked ours down on the local party line here in north alabama. they are known to form huge clumps. google it to be sure this is the correct identification. hope this helps!

NORM do you winter your Amaryllis outside here in middle TN.Its going to be cold here this week.I have 10 in pots that have been inside 3 mo think I will start to water a few to see what happens.

PAT.

I posted another comment about the Amaryllis on my blog site.

About the church garden, thanks for the good advice. Nothing is definate yet and I can't see us doing much this year except getting the site ready. I'm pretty sure the soil is red clay that will need a bunch of amending. I guess we will have a meeting in Febuary - Our church has small groups that meet in homes on Sunday nights and Some of them are focus groups (scrapbooking - parenting, etc) quite a few folks have shown an interest in gardening so I think I'll volunteer my studio space for a group every other Sunday night. I'll keep ya'll posted on our progress. Any advice is welcome and needed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blog

Lambsnob, Thank you for trying to identify. Unfortunately it is not a St.Josephs lily. The blooms look like gigantic amaryllis blooms. I really liked the lily though. Sorry for hijacking your post paperart.

No problem. Are you sure it's not an Amaryllis? I've had blooms as big as a softball and leaves at least 2 1/2 feet long - huge bulbs too. Do the leaves flop with the weight? Mine sometimes get so long that I cut them back.