How to Repot Amaryllis Bulbs

Are Your Amaryllis Bulbs Breaking Their Pots?

The Tropical Grower is featuring how to repot Amaryllis Bulbs this week because My Mom and I had to repot all ours this year, or really hers.  People grow Amaryllis Bulbs everywhere as houseplants, usually forced for Christmas.  We grow them in their preferred tropical climate, and they are majestic intertwined throughout Our Garden.  If you are Growing Tropical and you don’t have Amaryllis bulbs planted somewhere, you’re missing out.  These dramatic large flowered bulbs are a favorite with their large loppy leaves.  You should get some. Now is a good time.

Our Garden features both potted and ground planted Amaryllis bulbs.  They live there all year.  We never store them, but we do bring them into warmer areas or cover them if there is a danger of frost.  Usually, it’s around 1 or 2 nights a year.  This year, it was none.

Hurricane Flooding & Repots Kept the Early Blooms in the Bulbs

All the ground planted Amaryllis bulbs had Hurricane Ian damage. The big trees came down on the ones in the Traditional Vegetable & Herb garden, and it flooded initially. The ones in the shell circle were under water for almost 2 weeks and the Ligustrum tree for a few days after the storm. We didn’t expect those to bloom at all this year.

In the repots, we have buds, but the flowers don’t emerge until around the 1st week of March.  We usually have a couple of early bloomers, but not this year. The repots were pushing the start of the growing season.  It’s been very HOT here, the 90s this week.  Ugh, way too early, but the buds are all emerging right on time. Yippy!

How Do you Know It’s Time to Repot or Replant Amaryllis Bulbs

You definitely want to repot before the bulb breaks the pot.  We were not smart about it this year and had to buy all new pots.  Dang.   

A good rule of thumb is to repot when the bulbs have grown large enough to almost reach the sides.  For us, it occurs every 2-4 years depending on how much the bulbs reproduce.  We get many babies.  Ours were all repotted 3 years ago.  Yeah, we probably should have done it at 2.

On the flip side, we move bulbs around in the ground almost never.  We will pull out baby bulbs if they start crowding the main bulbs, but these things have been very good about spreading out.  I don’t believe I recall pulling one out in recent memory.  It’s one of the reasons I believe they like a snug fit instead of being root bound.  The other is you repot for health when they become root bound.  If you leave them alone, they will break the pots.  Root bound plants are happy that way.  Amaryllis bulbs need to be repotted, but that is entirely my opinion.  Most growers say they prefer being root bound. 

Repot or Replant When Amaryllis Bulbs Are Dormant

It’s important to identify when your Amaryllis bulbs go dormant because that is the time you want to repot or replant.  You do not want to replant with new growth or bushy leaves.  The bulbs do not like it.

Our bulbs go dormant, or mostly dormant, in the Fall or Early Winter.  The super bushy green parts turn brown and die.  Our bulbs either lose all of their leaves or keep 1 or 2 scraggly ones.  Unless there is a specific reason to remove it, we leave them alone.  The only pruning we do with these is to remove the flower stalk when the bloom dies.  My mom is serious about it. Chuckling, here.     

Amaryllis Bulbs HATE Frost

If you grow Amaryllis bulbs, the most important thing to remember is they hate frost.  It will kill them.  In our tropical growing zone, the ground NEVER freezes.  In fact, that ground warming to 60 degrees all you northern growers wait for with big wide eyes to start your plantings would kill Our Garden.  While we do have a couple of mornings we wake up with frost on the ground and I have had to scrape a little off the windshield, I’ve never seen our ground temperature drop below 70 degrees.  Amaryllis bulbs think this is lovely.

When I lived up north for college, I grew Amaryllis bulbs in a pot.  At some point, they migrated from Our Garden.  I don’t recall how that happened exactly, but they lived with me in several houses.  They wintered in the closet or garage, depending on the house.  When it started getting cold, I simply picked up the whole pot and set it inside, making sure the dirt completely dried-out for the winter.  They went dormant, and I set them outside when it warmed-up with a good watering to get them going again.

Pot or Ground?

It’s a personal preference in our tropical growing zone whether to drop Amaryllis bulbs in a pot or the ground.  There will be a little frost yearly that can kill the bulbs, and you will have to cover or bring them into a warmer area.  That’s a personal preference.  How lazy are you going to be in the cold?  I will say there have been years, particularly when My Mom was sick, the Amaryllis bulbs in the ground didn’t get covered.  They are in groupings with other plants and nothing died, but it is always a risk not to cover them.

In northern growing zones, you have the same choice.  The only difference is you won’t be covering them 1 or 2 nights out of the year if you plant them in the ground, you will be digging them up.  I know several growers who do this for a very dramatic effect in their gardens, and it is lovely.  

Personally, digging up bulbs isn’t my bag.  We have to do it for the wonderfully beautiful traditional spring bulb flowers like daffodils or tulips here, which is why there aren’t any in Our Garden.  We have grown them. Planting them in the fall from the refrigerator and digging them up in March.  It’s a commitment, and I’m all for more green if it’s your bag.

Choosing a Pot

Make it Sturdy

If you’re planting your Amaryllis bulbs in the ground, you can skip to Best Planting Practices. #best-planting-practices.  Otherwise, you’ll need a pot.  Choose a sturdy one first and foremost with at least 6 inches of depth under the bulb to accommodate the roots.  Amaryllis flowers are big and top heavy.  It’s gonna weeble and wobble.  You don’t want it to fall down.  You also don’t want it to break the pot either by the bulb getting bigger or producing several new bulbs, which they do.   

Give it Drainage Holes

The second most important thing is drainage holes.  If your pot doesn’t have them, make them.  I march my cordless drill into the yard and go to town.  I recommend using some tape over the area if you are drilling thin plastic to keep it from splitting.  If you have a ceramic or terracotta pot with no holes, do not directly plant an Amaryllis bulb in it.  Use a second pot with holes for planting and set it inside the ceramic or terracotta pot on a layer of rocks.  Make sure the rocks are drying out and the plant is not sitting in water.

We like a minimum of 5 holes in the bottom of a pot, but we usually dill as many as the size of the pot will allow.  We get lots of water and the more holes the better.  It also allows for aggressive roots that creep out the drainage holes to plant themselves in the ground.  In our area, if the roots are filling the holes, the pots will fill with water.  It happens often.  I need to go out and fix Hannah’s lantana plant right now.  The more holes the better. 

Side Note

As a side note, you do not want the plants from a pot rooting through the holes into the ground.  It defeats the purpose of a pot.  I try to move the pots around and check for aggressive roots, trimming them or pushing them back through the holes.  If you’re okay with them rooting through the pot, do the plants a favor and just remove the whole bottom of the pot.  The small holes can actually restrict the root’s ability to move nutrients up into the plant.  

Finding the Correct Size

They say Amaryllis bulbs like to be root bound.  As I mentioned previously, I don’t know if I believe they like to be root bound as much as they enjoy a snug fit.  If you are planting a single bulb, you want about 2 inches from the bulb to the outside of the pot all the way around.  If you are planting multiple bulbs, they like about 1 inch between them and 2 inches around the outside.  The size of your pot will be directly dependent on the size of your bulb.  Yeah, I know, if you are buying pots and bulbs at the same time, there is some guess work.

Best Planting Practices

Patience

I cannot stress this enough: Patience is key if you are repotting Amaryllis bulbs.  Anytime you mess with the bulb skin or roots you are taking a chance on opening it up to fungus, bugs, bacteria, and a multitude of environmental conditions.  So, get comfortable, take a seat, find a shady spot, have a drink or smoke, whatever is necessary for you to relax and take your time.

There are several methods you can use to separate the bulb from the dirt and other bulbs.  Some people simply dump out the pot and rinse with water until the dirt dissolves and they can wiggle the roots apart.  Others loosen the dirt and wiggle the bulbs out.  I’ve also seen a soaking method which makes me cringe because Amaryllis bulbs rot in standing water, but they did okay for a short period.  Any of them work as long as you are gentle with the bulbs and don’t leave them in water long enough to slime.

Our Garden

Unless we can reach a hand around the bulb and gently pull it from the dirt with intact roots, which almost never happens, we dump the pot.  Now, remember, gentle does it.  When I say we dump the pot, it means we remove the contents from the inside of the pot and put it on whatever surface we are working on – sometimes just the ground like this year.  There isn’t a thud, clunk, or loud noise involved if we can help it.  Gentle.

Then, it’s a lot like gently working string holiday lights apart.  Our Amaryllis bulbs like to reproduce and fill the pots with bulbs.  The result is a huge matted root ball under the bulbs.  It takes some time.    

Start With One, and Move to the Next

We find it helps to focus on 1 bulb at a time.  These aren’t like most plants where you break some of the roots apart to encourage new growth at planting.  You want to wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle and keep the roots whole, intact.  Both My Mom and I just use our fingers to work everything apart, but I do know some use little sticks or pokers to help.  I’m always afraid I have less control with a tool and am more likely to gouge, poke, or hurt the roots. Who knows if that’s true.

Once the bulbs are all separated, and I have to say this is the most time consuming part, even this year when I dug up yard compost to fill the 12 pots, you are ready to replant.

Planting Medium – Dirt

I’ve read that Amaryllis bulbs will grow in about any soil that is well drained.  I cannot confirm this statement as we are Growing Tropical and require a sandy soil.  It’s the only soil type we have experience growing Amaryllis bulbs in, even when I lived up north.  Since we are planting outside in Our Garden, I would not recommend something for inside, but I do know what ours like to grow happy.

We’ve used lots of different soils: bagged, natural, made, but it’s always a sandy compost that goes into the pot in the end.  The Amaryllis bulbs planted in the yard are in Black Sand.  

Sandy Compost

Our Garden has two types of compost: Yard and Garden.  The Yard compost is piles of branches and dried leaves in layers with green leaves, weeds, and fibrous branches.  There are piles in the natural areas.  These take a long time to break down, usually years.  It’s the peat part, the broken down branches and logs.  The Garden Compost is much richer and has almost no peat which I add separately after the compost is made or not depending on if I’m making Black Sand.

We used the Yard Compost for the Amaryllis bulb pots because we want the soil to hold some water and added yard sand to help it drain.  Yard Compost is chunky with bits of peat that hold water.  It looks and acts like compost with sand in it.  My Mom also added some Black Cow, this is a commercial compost with cow manure, to give the pots an extra boost of nutrients and a neutral slow-release granular fertilizer for long-term health.  

Black Sand

The Amaryllis bulbs planted in the ground live in Black Sand.  Our natural soil is a silty-sand.  It looks and acts like sand.  If you add Garden Compost to it, it turns black, but it still looks and acts like sand.  People often ask me the ratio, you know, how much of each, but it’s a feel instead of an exact amount.  If it doesn’t look like sand, you’ve added too much compost.  If it turns gray, you have too much sand. 

The bulbs planted in the ground receive a fresh helping of compost, natural composting from the plants around it throughout the year, and a neutral granular fertilizer once a year around Feb.  We do an overall garden health prep for spring, just like everyone else.  Ours is just technically done in the winter, usually in 80 degree weather.  LOL!

Don’t Bury Your Bulbs

Don’t bury your bulbs, float them. Amaryllis bulbs like to be partially above ground.  Our rule-of-thumb is to bury  ⅔ of the bulb leaving the remaining ⅓ above ground.  Hold your bulb in the pot where you want to plant it, with ⅓ of the bulb above where the top of your soil is going to be located.  We like to leave 1 to 2 inches from the top of the pot.  

Fill the bottom of the pot to the end of the roots.  Then, where you are going to set the bulb, make a little mound where the octopus roots will fan out around the mound with the bulb sitting on top.  The mound should be big enough to hold your bulb where you want it with the roots falling around the sides.  You shouldn’t be crowding the roots here.  The goal is to give them more room.

Multiple Bulbs

If you are planting multiple bulbs in a single pot, position all the bulbs this way where you want them.  When you’re done, it should look like the bulbs are planted in the pot without the topsoil.  Because that is all you have left, fill the pot with the bulbs in place until the soil covers all but the top ⅓ of the bulb.  Make sure you press all the soil into place around the roots.  Air pockets can kill plants.  Worse yet, water pockets will rot your bulbs.  Make sure everything is packed well, but gently, with soil.  We then add a layer of mulch around the bulbs making sure to cover any bare bulb spots where the skin has come off. Finally, water well and make sure it is draining.

Where Amaryllis Bulbs Like to Grow

Our Garden has Amaryllis bulbs planted in numerous places.  The joy of having pots is you can add a burst of crazy color to an area one year and move it to another next year.  However, you want to make sure it lives in tropical partial sun.  HA, you say, what’s that?  

Our bulbs get about 5 hours of full tropical sun a day.  I’m growing both broccoli and beefsteak tomatoes successfully in this amount of sun, right now.  So, for you northern growers, full sun.  For you Tropical Growers, give your bulbs a break especially when they start to bloom.  The flowers will last longer if they are not getting beaten down by the sun all day, just saying.

Make Sure Your Bulbs Get Plenty of Water

The soil should be moist, not soggy, as you head into a non-dormant period.  Water encourages both growth and flowers, but too much will rot your bulbs.  Ours, like almost everything else in Our Garden, gets sprinkled 30 minutes everyday.  If you don’t water yours daily, you want to make sure it gets some extra water starting around the middle of Feb until you get flowers.

Now All That Left is the Waiting. Check out next week’s What’s Bloomn’ slideshow to see all the blooms. Flower Photos