Thursday, April 18, 2013

Amaryllis: The Bulb Harvest

I bought the bulbs end of 2010, planted it in front of my house. They bloomed once, and stay bushy until it bloom 2 weeks ago (some other cluster will bloom soon too). And they stayed hidden for years under invading duo: grass and jasmine.
I cleared up the grass and jasmine to find those few bulbs have multiplied  they have little bulblets sticking next to them :), and the mother-bulb (the original one) have grown so huge. I believe they can grow much bigger if  they were not confined with stone fences.

The one in the pic below will bear 2 sticks of flowers soon. So, I won't harvest them. What I did was putting a stick next to it, so it'll help to support the flower once it bloomed.
L-R clockwise:  a cluster: consists of mom and lil' bulblets; a closer look; the waist size of bulb-mommy... 
I harvest some of the cluster, see if I can rest them and later force them to bloom.

Here are some pictures of the harvest:
a cluster: after harvest
see the dint on bottom left is from her bulblets
the whole family after being decapitated. 
 So what happened is (theoretically), after removing all the greenies and cutting the root to manageable length, the bulbs need to be dried in open air, and then kept in paper bag for 1-2 months, so they can rest.
After the resting period, they can be planted and can be expected to bloom.

Never tried this before. Well I have 3 clusters, now I have harvested 1 of them, let see how it goes in a few months. So excited :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Do you eat the bulb?