Plantitudes – plants with attitude, i.e., a new feature series with plants that I find interesting in some way.
This amaryllis was a gift from one of my sisters for Christmas way back in 2007. The variety is ‘Apple Blossom’ and, although it is a fairly well-known variety, it is definitely a winner!
The botanical name of amaryllis is Hippeastrum and it is a a flowering bulb originating in South America. My method of bringing it to bloom every year is to cut off the flower stalk after the blooms are done, give it a little bit of liquid fertilizer, and summer it outdoors. In late September-early October, I cut off any of the remaining leaves and bring it indoors. At this point, I stop watering the bulb and wait until it decides it is ready to start again with a little green leaf shoot poking up before watering it again, generally about 10 weeks or so.
Soon it will send up a flower stalk about 24″ tall. Sometimes the stalk will have up to 5 flowers on it. This year it has only three, but I noticed that there are a couple of new leaf shoots off to the sides so the bulb (s?) probably need a slightly bigger pot. The flower color is mainly pure white with a beautiful streaking and edging of pink.
It has a yellow-green throat
and the huge flowers soon explode with a beautiful sweet fragrance.
This is a beautiful easy-care flowering bulb that blooms for me indoors in the deepest of the winter when its beauty is so needed, and it keeps on blooming year after year with just a minimal amount of attention. Definitely a plant with attitude! Thank you, dear sister, for giving it to me!
