Amaryllis Dancing Queen

I have been growing amaryllis since I was a teenager after being bought one for Christmas.  They are often sold as Christmas gifts and at that point I had never seen a bulb so big or thought about such amazing flamboyant flowers.  

Whilst living in the family home I was more a houseplant collector than gardener, and as the (many) decades have passed I have kept my love of amaryllis.  When Thompson and Morgan contacted me last year about a blog post I had written some years ago about my amaryllis (name sadly lost, its a Spider one is as best as I can say) and asked if they could feature it in one of their masterclasses I was happy to say yes.  As a thank you they sent me an amaryllis 'Dancing Queen' as a gift which duly arrived.  I am under no obligation to write about the gift at all but it is so pretty I thought I would.

The bulb arrived in late November last year and I potted it up.  Amaryllis bulbs don't like to be 'buried' so they sit awkwardly semi-naked in in the compost.

and then I waited

Within a few weeks there was signs of movement.  I confess I put it in a bit of a cold room to start with, but once I moved it into the kitchen growth happened pretty quickly. 

They are wonderful to watch grow as they really do gallup along nicely once the mood is upon them.

The big fat flower buds open to be big fat flowers.

and you can see two more buds just waiting for their moment.  I cannot see that a second stem is on the way up, but there are often two stems of flowers for these beautiful bulbs.

Some years I dead-head them fairly quickly, other years I pollinate the flowers with a bit of tissue and let them create seeds.  I have had them grow from seed quite well but as you can imagine it takes a few years for them to actually flower.

and what about the amaryllis I was talking about way back in 2013?

Here she is getting ready to flower again.  She summers outside and overwinters indoors.  You can see that she has some bulblets that need splitting to be plants in their own right.  She always flowers around about this time of year.  

I was so grateful to be given the amaryllis.  Its a simple, easy plant to grow and yet so stunning.  This has encouraged me to look for other ones to grow, expect some purchases soon.... 

Take care and be kind.

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