The Bulb You Can Plant In The Fall For Beautiful Red Blooms For The Holidays

If you haven't purchased your Hippeastrum bulbs yet, you'd better get to it — the flowering plant more commonly known as amaryllis will bloom indoors just in time for the winter holidays if you start the bulbs indoors in the fall. Depending on the variety, the beautiful amaryllis can produce flowers in a variety of colors, from the more common red and white to striking pink and orange. Often given as holiday gifts once flowered, amaryllis bulbs can be ordered online or found at most garden and hardware stores. They're even known as the one indoor plant even novices can impress with. Pre-forced bulbs will flower in as little as three weeks, while dormant bulbs take around six to eight weeks to flower.

While you can purchase fully grown amaryllis plants to give as gifts for the holidays, it's much more fun — and more satisfying for those with a green thumb — to grow your own before gifting them. Plant your bulbs, one per container, in well-draining potting mix, leaving the top half of the bulb visible above the soil. The bulb should be placed in a spot with indirect sunlight, and the soil should be kept barely moist — be sure not to overwater it. Once your amaryllis is done blooming, you don't have to toss it. Simply cut off the flower stem at its base, and treat it like any other house plant. 

However, you may want to think twice about growing amaryllis if you have furry friends at home. All parts of the plant are toxic to animals and humans.

Native to South America, amaryllis plants can thrive outdoors in southern states like Florida, but they are grown mostly as houseplants in the rest of the United States. When choosing your bulbs to grow amaryllis indoors, keep in mind that the size of the bulbs correlates directly to the size of the flowers and number of flower stalks the bulb will produce. Amaryllis flower stalks can grow to be quite tall, so be sure to choose a pot with enough weight to it that the mature stalks won't tip it over as they flower. 

When planting your bulb, leave a bit of room between the top of the soil and the lip of the pot. When you water your plant, water thoroughly and deeply, but not so often that the soil is always wet. Try some of these must-know tips to prevent bulbs from root rot. It's important to keep your amaryllis plant in a bright spot in your house, but keeping it out of direct sunlight will help the blooming period last longer. 

When the holidays have passed and your plant is done blooming for the season, cut down the flower stalk at the top of the bulb, and continue to care for the plant as you have been doing. Then, once the date of the last frost in your area has passed, plant the amaryllis — pot and all! — in the ground. The bulb will go dormant in late summer, at which point you can dig up the pot and bring it back indoors to rest in a cool, dark location without watering it for the next two months. Once this dormancy period is over, you can place the pot back in a brightly lit spot in your home and expect it to flower again.