Inthe last month I have planted 3 from contaners, where they were for at least 3 years,into the garden, all look good, one is blooming for the first time. I have two more in large containers that are now in bloom. When the bloom is over and the weather cools, I will divide them and plant, some in the garden and some ppotted for sharing. Al

The only person I ever knew who actually dried them was an ebay seller who did it for shipping purposes.

I always plant them in pots or, if I'm going to plant them within a couple of weeks, I wrap them in dryish-damp newspaper & keep them in the garage or in the shade of a shrub or in some other darkish place & mist them whenever I think about it.

They are pretty forgiving, but I always try to get them back into the ground as quickly as possible. Keeping them outside in the shade, as stated above works well for a surprisingly long time if there is no choice.

When you replant them, work a bag of composted manure into the holes. Dig deeply and wide too. For best flowering, you don't want to disturb them again for many years.

I have two clumps of Milk and Wines that I will have to divide this fall. I can't even begin to count the number of offsets I see.

Scott Ogden's Book, Garden Bulbs for the South says if you want fewer offsets and more blooms, you should plant them deeper. If you want offsets, plant them shallower. Anyone know exactly how deep is deep? I have always planted them with a bit of neck sticking out above ground. I suppose I will have enough of them to experiment....

Crinums are my absolute favorite bulbs for the south. Nothing else gives so much for so little effort.

Actually that advise can be a bit of a misnomer, crinums self-adjust their planting depth at least to some extent, several plants in the lily, iris, and amaryllis family do this.

I leave a little of the neck exposed, for cosmetic & drainage reasons.

Thanks for all the advice. We ended up potting some of the crinums individually in pots right away, they are growing like crazy! We planted them shallow in the pots since we could always set them deeper in the group wen we figure out where to put them. You're probably right, drying them out was for shipping purposes. What are you folks referring to by 'neck'? My bulbs were nice and fat and went directly to a thick stalk. I also planted some in the ground fairly deep (had read the same thing about deeper = more blooms), maybe 2-3" of stalk above the top of the bulb covered. But I noticed some recently planted at the cemetery and they appeared to barely have the top of the bulb covered. What works for you?

The neck is between the stem & the round bulb;
it's fatter than the stem but skinnier than the bulb.