>You don't mention how you are growing the Amaryllis. Are you growing them >outside in the ground? I wouldn't expect them to have much of a chance in >your area treated that way. Dear Jim et al; Over the last couple of years various people in my sort of climate have reported their near total lack of success in growing Amaryllis belladonna to bloom ANY WAY. I have tried many suggestions offered on this list and had NO BLOOM. On the contrary, most Lycoris are easy here. This is not due to a defect in the bulb, just stating climatic givens. My preference is for plants that perform in my climate with a minimum of extreme or special care. >don't forget, most of us would have trouble assembling a Lycoris collection >with a third or a fourth of the ones you have. It continues to be a frustration that over some 13 years I imported and resold well over 20,000 (yes thousand, maybe closer to 30K) Lycoris species and selections-over 30 different forms. I sold hundreds, probably thousands to "bulb growers"/ nurseries. For the most part, these bulbs were potted, prices tripled or pentupled (sp?) and resold with almost no effort to establish these in a nursery. There have been a very few exceptions. Even now I think you can fairly easily obtain upwards of half dozen Chinese Lycoris, almost that many Japanese species and selections. Unfortunately few of these are raised in the US. I think this may say more about the nature of American 'nurseries', than the lack of Lycoris propagating materials. Although a few nursery people actually talked to me about growing and establishing various species (and I uniformly encouraged and helped each one), I have yet to see much results. I don't want to name these nurseries as some are on this list and others you would know. And I fully understand that it is easier and cheaper to simply buy bulbs and resell them, than actually grow your own nursery stock, but it is short sighted. And it takes a long time and much effort to actually establish a plant in number suited to an annual harvest. And in 2002 I sold over 2,000 Chinese Lycoris bulbs (23 varieties) Were you not interested less than 2 years ago? I don't want to complain about American nursery habits, but it seems to be a disheartening trend that more and more mom and pop growers have disappeared, been bought by big conglomerates or gone to being brokers of plants grown cheaply 'somewhere else' and not actually growing their own plants. We should encourage specialty 'growers' to actually grow specialty plants. I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be commercial bulb grower. I even warned buyers hat imports could stop any time. They appear to have stopped now, but that's another story. Best Jim W. -- Dr. James W. Waddick 8871 NW Brostrom Rd. Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711 USA Ph. 816-746-1949 E-fax 419-781-8594 Zone 5 Record low -23F Summer 100F +