Amaryllis dormant period: Go back to sleep, it's the middle of winter!

last month

I've read authoritative advice on winter care of amaryllis. (Actually I've distilled it from several differing "authoritative" sources.) In late fall, stop watering the plant and put it in a cool dark place. Wait for the leaves to wither, then cut them off. After a six to eight week dormant period (very important!) repot if necessary. Move the plants to a warmer place with bright light, water them, and watch them grow.

Well, my amaryllis just won't listen when I tell them what to do. It's late January, and the weather is just barely starting to warm up. Four out of five plants are sprouting, dry, in the dark. A couple of them weren't fully withered yet when they started sprouting, and the new leaves split the old ones and grew up through them. I expect the fifth plant to follow along within a few days.

I can't complain about the results. All of these plants did the same thing last winter, and bloomed last spring.

So, two questions. First, what should I do now? A couple of the bulbs have split, and I intended to repot them before letting them start to grow. Now that they're growing, should I repot them ASAP? Or is it already too late for this year?

Second, what should I do next year? My plants are seem to have a dormant period between zero and ten days, instead of six to eight weeks. Am I doing something wrong? Or is this a sign of robust good health? Or is it just a normal variation, nothing to worry about?

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Comments (4)

meg_w (9b) Bradenton
last month
In my experiece, just go ahead and repot them now. They are still pretty early in their growth cycle.
noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque)
26 days ago
If they are blooming annually for you, and the bulbs are maintaining size or getting larger every year, you have nothing to worry about, IMHO. How cool are you keeping them? At 40-50F and dry, mine usually stay dormant for 3-4 months before I wake them up. But if yours are blooming every year, there's no reason to do this.
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central_valley
Original Author
24 days ago
last modified: 24 days ago
@noseometer This year they were probably about 65 °F. I was trying a new place. The place I chose last year was about 10 °F cooler, but also relatively humid, and I hoped to make them dry out faster. (I think they did, but they started regrowing faster, too.)

There's really no place I can reproduce your conditions of 40-50 °F and dry unless I build a special climate-controlled environment for them. Conditions outside are cool and very humid. Conditions inside reflect that. The only way to get drier conditions is to increase the temperature.

"If... bulbs are maintaining their size or getting bigger..." does not fully reflect my situation; the bulbs are big and are not getting smaller, but they're splitting. One of my five plants now has now split into two bulbs, and another has split into three. There's a limit to how much a plant can do that and remain healthy.
noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque)
24 days ago
@central_valley There's no reason to grow them like exactly like mine. I just mentioned it as an example. They are resilient plants. My mother grows them in a mild climate outdoors, and they never go dormant, and they bloom every year for her. If you are getting blooms every year, they are fine.

For the bulbs that have split, are you asking if you should divide them? You could if you like, or you could let them grow in the same pot until they multiply so much that they crowd each other and reduce blooming.

That's what I did here. This started as one bulb.

This started as one bulb.

If you are asking if you could pot them up into a bigger pot,or give them fresh mix since they have already started growing, then yes, you could do that now if they need more room.