Gita, you said they look great, so why the worries? I do have some bulbs that have been going in & out, making babies, etc, for many years.

See http://davesgarden.com/guides/... and scroll halfway down, to "When you dig up the bulb..." by the picture of dug-up bulbs on my bench.

Your amaryllises will be fine! Separating the bulbs is a good way of having extra "insurance" in case one of the bulbs has trouble down the road... also, potting them individually can let you keep them cooler and bring them upstairs to enjoy one at a time, extending the show all winter.

Jill, the web pages contain a lot of good information. Thank you for sharing!

Gita, I like getting things all ready for winter so I won't have to deal with potting soil later. I normally pot up the amaryllis bulbs around this time of year, trim the leaves, and stop watering them. They will go dormant in a few weeks.

The problem with this approach is that the pots take up quite a lot of storage space if you have... well, I will not mention how many pots of them I have. Here are only a small portion of them. I think I will do it Jill's way next year. Keep them in a box and only pot them up when they show signs of growth.

That is a nice plan, getting the potting done now. I usually have, or wish I had, potting soil and a selection of pots in the house somewhere during winter, instead of trudging out to the shed. You never know when you might NEED to plant something. I could almost start Datura now, mine grow so slowly.

Donner, those look great! If you have a place where they could get a little light, there would be no need to let them go dormant... if you let them bloom when they feel like it, sometimes you get blooms twice a year...

Have I heard that a touch of frost may stimulate the Amaryllis to go dormant? Or was that another plant... it could apply to a number of things we usually dig and store for winter. I remember now which pot I used for 3 amaryllis last winter, so I'm going to try and pot my three tomorrow.

My big bale of potting mix, is about one third still full, and got a lot of rain in it during the last event, weighs a ton! I poked a couple holes and hope some drains. It'll become a giant dirt ice cube in the shed this winter.

I have some really delightful composted leaf mold from last years pile.

OK, Jill. I will keep a few pots out of dormancy, Jill. We will see when they will bloom.

The amaryllis bulbs have done very well this year. I just gave them plenty of water and fertilizer. The 'Flamenco Queen' bulbs did the best over the summer. They are 4" to 5" in diameter now, about the same size as when they came from ADR.

@sallyg, guess light frost won't damage the bulbs, but will kill the leaves. Is that the same as cutting the leaves off while they are still green? I did just that last year. I had only one weekend to get the bulbs ready for winter before my chemo started, so I just cut off the leaves when repotting them. I moved some of the pots indoors and kept some in the garage, not knowing if that would send them into dormancy or shock them to death . They all lived and bloomed.

The talk about amaryllis has reminded me that I should probably bring my dormant bulbs up from the basement and let them get started for another winter growing season!

Robin, fall planted bulbs best wait until after Halloween to be planted so they don't prematurely sprout and get damaged by winter weather.

Caladiums are on the way out, and Callas leaves almost gone= Donner, these are Callas you gave me. with white spotted leaves? I guess I can pull all those and let them dry for storage.

Happy Columbus Day. Corsicans claim Columbus was not from Genoa but was in fact from Calvi, Corsica. Don't argue with a Corsican.

Sally, the leaves of my Callas were still all green, but I dug them out last Friday. The bulbs can be left out to dry until the leaves are yellow. Calla bulbs are very easy to store. Keep them in seed starting mix (or peat moss) in a box and leave the box in the garage.

I gave Callas to SSG several years ago. She said she had always left them in the garden for winter. Your garden is at least as warm as hers. You may not need to dig them out.

I cut all the leaves back on my amaryllis, dumped them out of their pots, cut the roots back, and set them away for storage. I don't care about them blooming for any particular time. This was my second year with them and I have learned that you definitely need to leave them outside during the summer. Office lighting just doesn't cut it for them. I had three seedlings that were about the size of a nickel and now all three are a little larger than a golf ball. Good thing I took them out of the pots too because there wasn't much soil left in there!

So how do you know when to put them back into the pot and start watering? Just 8 weeks later?

One of my Amaryllis (Picote) just bloomed for a second time.

I was really surprised. I harvested the pollen if anyone wants it - happy to mail it to anyone in the USA. Have not dug mine up yet - I don't think a touch of frost will hurt them much. But I do have some seedlings I should maybe bring in. They are in pots, but I put the entire pot down into the ground. They seem to have liked that. I did just dig up one of my Paillio bulbs though - not happy to see that it has some red streak on it I think it might have that virus they get?

That red color is often just a response to stress or injury, not the dreaded "red blotch" fungal disease. Red blotch can apparently be recognized by defined margins and a sunken appearance to the red areas...

This advice comes too late for Sequoia, but don't cut back the roots when you pull your amaryllis bulbs... they'll just have to spend energy growing new roots.

I think I seldom give my bulbs a full 8 weeks of dormancy... I pull them up before frost, often at the end of October, toss them in a box and let the leaves gradually dry up and turn brown, and then I pot them up again around Thanksgiving.... for 8 weeks of dormancy, I'd have to wait until Christmas for repotting (or longer if I didn't start counting until the leaves were no longer green).

Hm. I pulled my amaryllis about three weeks ago and potted them last week in mostly dry potting mix.. Sounds like I can start watering again around Thanksgiving and hope for nice January-Feb bloom. I like them to bloom before anything at all gets going outside- crocus, forsythia.

Guess it's time for me to bring my amaryllis bulbs up from the basement, where they've been dormant since last spring...

hahaha oh no!!!! hope they are ok!

Mine spent the summer outside. Still there.

Anybody collecting seeds? The thread "2016 Fall Seed Collecting (for winter sharing!)" in Mid Atlantic Gardening forum

Don't forget to take photos of seedheads and seeds for the database...