The First Amaryllis

I potted up my amaryllis bulbs a month ago. Half of them are already showing signs of life, but one is already blooming. This is ‘Christmas Star’:

The little flowers on this amaryllis are bright red with a white star in the center. My bulb has sent up 2 scapes so far. The first one has 6 flowers on it. The second scape has not yet opened.

My plant is only 16 inches tall with 4-inch flowers, but take that with a grain of salt because apparently the height of amaryllis plants can vary greatly.

Last winter I gave my in-laws one of my potted-up bulbs that had already bloomed profusely. They wanted to take care of it in hopes it would bloom for them this year. As it turns out, the plant was not done yet. Within days it sent up a new flower scape that behaved like a freaky Jack-in-the-Beanstalk plant. That scape grew so fast that I didn’t even recognize the plant when I saw it the following week. It was growing an inch or more a day (they tracked the progress)! And when it bloomed the flowers were much bigger than when the plant bloomed at my house.

What was a short plant for me turned out to be a giant for them. We both grow our amaryllis plants in a south-facing window, but they keep their thermostat several degrees higher. Maybe amaryllis bulbs like it warm. Or it could just be my mother-in-law’s green thumb. She has beautiful houseplants. I’m a whiz at growing plants outdoors, but once they’re inside the confines of the house, all bets are off.