Grow Your Own Magazine

I am sure that lots of us have been given these for Christmas.

Can anyone please tell me the best way to get them to flower again or is it not worth the trouble.

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

As soon as the leaves start to show feed liberally. Keep the plant moist and well fed until the leaves start to yellow. Then put the whole thing out in the garden (after frosts) and DON'T water. Bring it back in in the late autumn - before frosts and water to bring back to life. Repeat process.

It is possible that it won't flower the second year, but it should, and certainly will in subsequent years.

The leaves generate the food to swell the bulb for the following seasons flowers - hence the need to feed this season.

It may not flower at the same time in future, but it will be more natural, and not forced to flower at Xmas or thereabouts!

LCG

My MIL puts hers out into an unheated (un-doubleglazed or anything else either!) leanto once it finishes flowering and ignores it until she puts up the christmas tree, at which point it comes back indoors and flowers for her in January.

And we STILL buy her a new one every year to replace the one from last year that;s bound to have died through either drought or frostbite yet never does!

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

I've got one in full flower - deep red and luscious - that I was given last year. I did as LCB did, feed after flowering, dry off under the greenhouse staging. Eventually - about August - I stopped watering to give it a rest. I brought it in in November - a good chunky bulb with a couple of bits of dried up leaf on top. I removed these, repotted and started to water. It's beautiful and has a small offset that I will pot up separately next year, though I don't expect flowers from that for a year or two. the new one is still in tight bud. I'll do the same with that though.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

I did as Young Flum did but earlier stopped watering in may and restarted in Sept. Flowered in late Nov. Wonder if it flowers in a set No of weeks after restart?

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It's not the growing old I mind but the growing stupid with it!

That's a though Grandpa. I would think as long as you give it a session of feeding/watering and a session of drying off you can maybe stagger the flowering times. Within reason of course.

__________________
Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

Thanks for the advice everyone, I will do as suggested and hope for flowers again. I also have one that my Mother threw out which is pink and white and didn't flower this year so will give that the same treatment.

__________________
Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet