Greetings from Duesseldorf, Germany In the globular grenhouse of the botanical garden these belladonna lilies are blooming so splendidly - as every season - (since some years) and they are slowly but steadily multiplying. Amaryllis belladonna grows best when planted in the ground, and left undisturbed. Well it is an amaryllid I like to assign as "desert amaryllis" thus indicating that it can tolerate rather extreme weather conditions. As regards to "extreme" there seems to exist ONLY one more or less relevant condition in order to induce the final scape elongation within the bulb, that is namely a certain minimum temperature during the summer "reposal" in the magnitude of 30°C - but I even doubt that. William the Bulb Baron has already found out that total dryness not to be crucial for a successfull scape "preparation"of the bulb. As regards the speculation about winter coldness I like to add now that these wonderfull Naked Ladies I mentioned above are growing at a minimum winter temperature of above 55°F (13°Celsius): http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/… http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/… http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/… http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/… My understanding of this great amaryllid is that it is accustomed to tolerate extreme conditions, might these comprise of coldness, heat or extreme drought (provided the root systemn remains grossly complete) But that does not mean that applying these are the stone of wisdom in order to induce the formation of blooms. Tropical Amaryllids are in general versatile, and they reward a good husbandry, that includes maintaining them at moderate temperatures. And a container volumen which is not too spare. Particularly Amaryllis belladonna will not perform so very well at all in pot confinement ;-) It is a rather tiny plant; I possess ome bulb from Madeira (250 grams) and as far as I kow 400 g will seldom be exceeded. This leads to the temptation to prison them into containers which are too small for them and make them suffer. Usually a mother bulb willl waste its energy while diligently dividing there, delivering numerous deplorably small offsets. Hans-Werner
