According to the experts (I cite GQT last year), abuse is the key to success: at the end of the summer season cut off the leaves, kick them under a potting shed bench and ignore them until the start of spring.
There are a few problems with this:
1. I've probably got the wrong end of the stick - happens a lot.
2. I don't have a potting shed. If I kicked them under my main bench, they'd never be seen again. There's a whole ecosystem in the sawdust, probably.
The flowers are formed inside the bulb, at the end of the previous year's growing season. Or so I've read. So for big flowers you need to keep them as happy as possible during the previous summer.
And apparently they do/don't like being pot-bound. I've read both! Anyway, I re-pot mine every few years or so with John Innes #2, which they really do seem to like, and some straw and gravel in the bottom of the pot for ease of water flow. when I re-pot them I usually earth up to leave about a vertical inch or so of the bulb above the earth.
I always bottom-water them - into the saucer.
During the summer they go out into the garden, usually on the garden table, and basically get ignored apart from watering, if I remember to do it. The garden table is because snails and slugs love the leaves. They invariably do get a bit eaten, but it doesn't seem to bother them much. You can tell they like it because the leaves take on a much darker green than they have indoors, and new leaves tend to be much bigger (18" leaves isn't unusual now).
Again I read that a breeze and/or being brushed by passing "traffic" is good for plant growth, and this seems to be true: the patio is sunny but makes any breeze swirl around a bit and the leaves flap about - last year was the best growth year yet, and the longest time they've been outdoors, and as I said, the one in the picture surprised us by flowering for a second time at the tail end of the summer. They're not supposed to do that.
Most of them now have bulblets - little offshoots that stay connected to the main bulb. I thought these might be a problem but Googling doesn't indicate they are, so I've left well alone. They've grown rather a lot recently so I'll take a view when they are re-potted next winter.
The general advice is to not water over the winter, but I water those that do still have good green leaves, although a lot less than in the summer. This winter I stopped altogether for about a month through mid Dec to Jan. It hasn't bothered them a bit, so I may do the same in future.
As soon as there's any sign of a flower stalk (the tip of the bud is noticeably fatter than a leaf), I start watering continuously - well, topping-up daily. Because they're alongside a tall window, I have to turn them twice a day, sometimes more often, otherwise the stalk follows the light. The one in the picture was doing at least 2" per day at its fastest, and it only takes an hour or two to really get them to lean. We have LEDs in that room, and I think they chuck out more UV than comes through the window, too. If I don't remember, they are leaning towards the light fitting when we come in for breakfast in the morning, even though it's been off for eight hours or so!
The final thing that seems to have worked really well is phosphate-based fertilizer. I used to give them Tomorite, and that does encourage flowering, but it also doesn't put much energy into the bulb (tomatoes die off at the end of the season). The first season was OK, but then several of them didn't flower the following year. So I have some magic powder from our local garden centre, almost lawn feed, and a half teaspoon in the saucer per plant seems to work for the entire season (it doesn't dissolve very fast). I won't feed until after flowering, as I want leaf growth, and don't want the flowers to go over early.
Shop-bought Amaryllis are usually sectioned (surgically) by the growers a couple of years beforehand and then brought on. The technique is to clean a good mature bulb, then cut it into vertical segments with a scalpel, each piece including a bit of the root crown from the base. These are then brought on in well-sterilized potting compost.
Plants grown from seed take at least four growing years to reach flowering size. The surgical technique is a quick route to flowering bulbs. The disadvantage is that the bulbs thus created don't have the energy reserves of naturally grown ones. I've been given quite a few as presents down the years, and those usually don't flower in the second year, and I've a recent one that's in year three now, and probably won't flower until next year now, although it's vigorously producing leaves as I type. Last year was a washout though - even its leaves fell off eventually - all gone by about early December, although it obviously wasn't dead as such.
I should say: they are _really_ hard to kill off unintentionally. The kids were given some of the ones we still have, as presents by my dad years ago. They neglected them and one was dumped out in the garden in its pot and completely forgotten about - winter frosts, no watering, no TLC of any sort. I was going to recycle the pot, just before a summer holiday, when I noticed new leaf shoots coming. By the time we got home (two weeks) it had plenty of leaves, and I took a risk and re-potted it then (it had been on a shelf, and the rain had washed out a lot of the compost surrounding it). It's gone on to flower every year since.
They will self-fertilize - you need a small soft paintbrush - but I've usually cross-bred them and kept the seed, although I haven't grown any yet (no more space!). As I said, they should take around four years to reach flowering size.
I think they're daft things, but they are stupidly exuberant. The kids think I'm potty... in a harmless way!
E.
[Edited so it's actually in English!]
