
Our Amaryllis bulbs are just reaching the end of the blooming cycle so I thought I would throw a few pictures up while they were still in flower. Amaryllis (correctly known as Hippeastrums) make great houseplants if you have full sun. Many amaryllis will typically bloom in spring in the Northern Hemisphere, give or take a month. The reason you see so many in flower around the December holidays is because those bulbs have been specially prepared to bloom then. In fact, most growers assume that you must let your amaryllis to go dormant in the fall months so that they will bloom when awakened. Most of the species in nature do not go dormant — they are from tropical or subtropical regions and while they might enjoy cooler winter spells they grow continuously. So, you do not need to let your Amaryllis go dormant by withholding watering in the fall, unless you’re trying to orchestrate the blooming for the holidays, which is a different matter. You can read more about Amaryllis dormancy here.
To the contrary, amaryllis like to grow throughout the winter months, as ours do, in a bright sunny spot. Admittedly, they don’t grow that much during winter but most of the foliage is maintained and as soon as spring comes they have a head start on dormant bulbs. Once I started doing this, I found that my larger plants sometimes flowered more than once a year — in the spring and again in the fall! Typically, I get two to three spikes of blooms per bulb every year, and in some cases even more.