Hippeastrum or Amaryllis? It seems conjecture over the name has been going on for centuries, but I just read a rather charming description for amaryllis which states they are “sold as ready to bloom for the holidays”!
Whichever you choose to call them, (and its more about whether the particular bulb is from the Americas or South Africa), it’s their time of the year to hold their heads high and eclipse every other bloom. I look forward to each October with great expectation for my pots of Hippies. This year, the divine pink & white is the first to open and has long been my favourite (well, of the ones that I own anyway!). I was just given a bulb for a spectacular one that I hope to coax into flower NEXT year….
We discovered a clump of rather thin & ordinary red ones by an old water tank here years ago, and I promptly dug them up & planted them into pots (where I much prefer them). I have collections in terracotta pots as well as plastic, so I can pop them into a cachepot inside. Even the spindly red ones look effective this way.
Seeing them always reminds me of a visit we made to a rather grand old lady in Miami years ago…..she had simply hundreds of them (massed inside the house as well as in pots in her amazing garden). Our eyes were out on stalks and the very idea of that visit still makes L & me chuckle at the few days we had there with his Godfather, who called the city ‘Meeaaahmee’!