- [Narrator] The beautiful blooms of an amaryllis can happen each and every year given the right care.

Troy Marden is with an experienced grower to discuss the different types, the optimum growing environment, and how to divide them to rejuvenate their potential.

Marty DeHart is in the home garden of a daylily enthusiast to check out the thousands of beautiful blooms.

We'll see the seemingly endless variety in form, color, and height.

Plus, Tammy Algood shares a soil mix recipe that will have plants thriving.

Join us.

(upbeat music) For amaryllis, there's years and years of blooms yet to come.

(upbeat music) - You know, I think we all love amaryllis, and most of us are used to seeing them at Christmas time.

We force them, they come into flower for us, like this beautiful one that's here in front of me.

But then what do you do with them?

What happens after Christmas?

A lot of times, unfortunately, they just get pitched, but they don't have to.

And we are here at Tennessee State University today with Dr.

Matthew Blair, and he's going to tell us how to keep them over from year to year and how to be successful, not only growing them, but propagating them.

- Yeah, we have some plants here that are now ei ght to 10 years old, and... they're grown just right out on a balcony all summer long.

- Uh-huh.

- And then around November, I bring them in because, obviously I don't want them to freeze in their little pots.

- Right.

- [Matthew] I keep them a little pot bound, constricted, and they got these nice big fibrous roots that are all the way to the bottom.

And then I'll do a repotting either after they bloom- - Uh-huh.

- Or... before if I see some pups coming.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Matthew] Helping them out is keeping them cold in that November time- - Mm-hmm.

- [Matthew] And then even putting them right up against a, in my case, a single pane window where they can get cold just up against the window.

- Right.

- And then the first to bloom are the Hippeastrum papilio, which are butterfly types.

- Mm-hmm.

- And they seem to be regular for early January.

- Right.

- And then, the more store-bought ones that I've kept over a number of years, they start more by February, March.

- Right.

- But I really love them because they send up two, two stalks of flowers.

- Two stalks almost always.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And the big hybrids that we're used to seeing at Christmas really are spring flowering plants in their native habitats, and most of them are hybrids with a long lineage, but I think the reason we see them flowering in February and March is because that's their normal time to bloom and the Christmas flowers are actually forced, just like you would force tulips or daffodils for the holidays.

We see the same thing with Hippeastrum, also called amaryllis as a common name.

- [Matthew] Uh-huh.

- [Troy] But talk to me for just a minute about the botanical name of these plants and why sometimes that can be a little bit confusing.

- Amaryllis is actually a common name, but also a genus name.

- Right.

- And when it's a genus name, it refers to just two species from South Africa, whereas these are all within another genus, related one, but the name of that one is Hippeastrum.

- But it is sometimes confusing because when we start talking about botanical names and Latin names, I know a lot of times people get sort of scared about having that conversation, but... Hippeastrum is the botanical name for this plant.

Amaryllis is a common name, but for the South African species, which are a little bit more like what, in the South we would call surprise lilies that also bloom in the late summer and fall, that genus name is actually Amaryllis.

So when you have a genus name, a botanical name and a common name that are used for the same plant, it does sometimes get a little bit confusing.

- [Matthew] I think they have in common one nice thing, which is add water and they will bloom.

- Right.

- So actually, I up the water as soon as the heat starts and I add a little fertilizer- - Uh-huh.

- Right before that timing of adding the water.

- Right.

- So that's when I get blooms a little, I push them a little bit earlier.

- Right.

So if we don't want our amaryllis, Christmas amaryllis, to just be a one-time thing, then Matthew, tell me a little bit about how, a little more about the process of how you go through saving your plants over from year to year.

- Okay, so the really important thing is that the leaves are providing the photosynthesis- - Right.

- For the plant to grow bigger and do well, and you want the bulb to fill the pots.

That's why I always use sort of narrower pots, deeper pots.

- Right.

- And they get within an inch of the side of the pot and you know they're doing really well and they're going to bloom well next year.

- Right.

- And so what I'll do is just as soon as springtime comes around, I'll take this sucker out and I'll put them in the garden or on the balcony where it gets a lot of rain.

- Uh-huh.

- It doesn't need to have full sun in this case, but it needs to have rain.

And then, what I see is that they keep a lot of strap leaves on them and they get a few more.

And then when I bring them in, a few of the leaves dry up- - Right.

- In that November timeframe, but I try to keep as many on as possible.

Sometimes, you know, you see them fade a little bit so you prop them in between other plants.

- Right.

- And then, once they're fully dried, I'll pick off the side leaves that are not pretty anymore, prune off some of the leaves that have lesions or that have bugs on them.

And then, I will leave them in a sunny place, like a windowsill, but if they don't have a windowsill, I find that they also keep their leaves going and they'll still bloom.

Now, one thing that's important is once they bloom, they'll fade faster if they're in the hot sun.

- Right.

- So take them and put them on your coffee table or put them on your dining room table and really enjoy them.

- Yeah.

One of the things you'll notice is that they'll start to set little baby plants off here to the side.

So when that happens, you can either let them grow and kind of have multiple bulbs in one pot or you can separate those off and make more.

- And multiply.

- So Matthew's going to show us how to do that and how to multiply your plants and have more amaryllis to enjoy at home.

- So, especially for this... papilio Hippeastrum, the flowers are spent, you can sort of take those off and you can lift up the whole plant.

And I've marked whichever are the Hippeastrums with an orange tag just so that I know when they're not blooming what they are because I like to give these away as plants for students.

And what I do after I've removed it from the pot is you see all these beautiful fibrous roots and you see it gives space for even little, little side plants to grow from seedlings.

That's from being outdoors all summer.

And what you do is you come in and you hold the mother plant really closely so that when you hear a crack, you know that the baby has separated.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Matthew] Once you've done that, then you can start separating out some of the roots because she's going to be, the baby plant is going to be very much- - Sort of entangled.

- Tangled, yeah.

- With the mother plant.

Yes.

(Matthew laughing) - [Matthew] So you got to get on her side, the baby away from the mom, and push down, pretty much as hard as you can.

And as you push, there's less roots in the middle of the pot than there are on the outside of the pot.

And it doesn't matter if you break a few because what you're doing, let me get this other plant out of the way, what you're doing is separating out this guy with as many of the side shoot and roots and laterals and... and stringy roots as possible.

And then you get a plant that is really almost good to go.

It'll take a year to flower and so you'll want it to be one of those outdoor plants that you collected and put outside.

- Right.

- But the final result is something like this.

Even if they're younger, you can do this slightly younger.

This one came out as a nice, almost daffodil-like bulb- - Yeah.

- But if they're younger, they can look like this, and you can keep these for about a year and a half, then re-pot.

But this one's ready to go.

So we'd re-pot this here as you could on your kitchen table.

You just put it down in the bottom.

Sometimes I use a bit of paper on the bottom because I know it'll last just the length of the time that I'm growing the roots.

- Uh-huh.

- This is the "Nashville Ledger," so it's a good use for the ledger.

And you go and add all the soil back to it.

You can even add some of the soil from the mom, but the mom's going to benefit from the soil that you replace from where her baby was because you're fertilizing her at the same time that you're, that you're re-potting.

- Right, you're giving her some new soil for new roots to grow into and all of that.

So- - So she does just as well.

It's giving.

- So as you're potting, you've buried that kind of up to the neck of the bulb.

- Correct.

- And as the bulb grows, then it will sort of emerge from the top of the soil like some of these others that you see.

- [Matthew] Yeah, once it gets large.

- [Troy] Yeah, you don't want to bury too deeply though with most of these, right?

- [Matthew] Yes, because overwatering can rot the plants.

- Right.

- But when they're babies, I find that it's okay to keep them sort of at soil level.

- Uh-huh.

- I've tried both ways with them up a little bit, but since I like to have them fend for themselves.

- Well, and also since it's newly potted and not completely rooted in yet, then having it buried a little deeper also helps just to support the bulb and not let the top-heavy foliage pull it out of the pot and that sort of thing.

- [Matthew] Yeah, we get a plant that pretty much can stand on its own or it can go next- - Right.

- [Matthew] To another houseplant and just survive for- - [Troy] So like you said, that bulb was about daffodil size, maybe an inch and a half in diameter.

So another year, maybe two to flowering size.

What do you think?

- [Matthew] Yeah, I think at a minimum two years.

- Uh-huh.

- So it's a good investment and it's a good present.

- Right.

Nice to have little giveaways for gardening friends who come by.

All right, so Matthew showed us how to separate a baby from a mother plant and to re-pot it.

And what you noticed when he did that is that that baby had roots completely intact and is right ready to go into a new pot.

When we buy amaryllis online or at a garden center or, you know, one of the box stores or wherever, as a dormant bulb prior to Christmas, a lot of times they look just like this with a dry base and no roots.

So how would you go about potting this one up?

Same way?

- Well, Troy, I think... your suggestion of adding to water first and letting the roots emerge a little bit- - Yeah.

- Is really helpful.

And if not, I might try during the summer and put it outside.

I found this late in the season- - Yeah.

- But especially if it's a Christmas one- - [Troy] Right.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I'd need those roots.

- So most of the time, what you're going to do is just pot this up to about two thirds of the way, up to about this level on the bulb.

And what Matthew was referencing is if you read a lot of the old literature about growing amaryllis from the 1950s and 1960s, they will tell you that on a bulb like this that has no roots emerging from the bottom, to set this overnight in very warm water, warm to the touch, and if you have a heating pad that you can set it on, even better, just about a half an inch deep, and it will break the dormancy of the base of the bulb and encourage it to start forming roots.

So, if you can do that, you'll actually get better root formation on these bulbs.

But again, you're just going to plant this right into a pot of potting soil about two thirds of the way up the bulb.

It will root out, grow new leaves.

This bulb's kind of small.

It may not bloom this year, may need another year, but you'll get new foliage, new growth, and this will grow into a great plant.

So, if you're growing amaryllis as a beautiful holiday flower, or if you want to keep them a little bit longer, they make great houseplants.

We want to thank Dr.

Matthew Blair one more time for inviting us into his greenhouses here at Tennessee State University and giving us a little insight on how he grows amaryllis.

Thank you so much for having us today.

- [Matthew] Thank you, Troy, and thank you to "Volunteer Gardener."

(pleasant guitar music) - Middle of June is Daylily Central in Tennessee, and today we're at a gorgeous daylily garden where we're going to look at different forms and colors and varieties and show you what you can have too.

This is the garden of John Douglas and Leslie Matthews.

And this is John, who is going to share- - Hello.

- Share with us all about your daylilies, and let's just start right in.

Tell me about this one.

- This is Strawberry Candy and it is a smaller bloom.

It's a four-inch bloom.

And as you can see, it has a beautiful band around the petals.

- Mm-hmm.

- These are the sepals- - Mm-hmm.

- And the sepals are, don't have a coloration on it, so that makes it a band.

- [Marty] Rather than an eye zone.

Yes.

- Yes.

- [Marty] Isn't that gorgeous?

I have this daylily myself, and in my experience, it re-blooms.

- Yeah, but Imperial Dragon, as you can see, has the coloration... on petals, petals- - And.

- Sepals.

So that is an eye band.

- [Marty] Oh, isn't that gorgeous?

That is big eye zone, and I love that limey yellow heart in that.

- [John] Yeah, the throat is a limey yellow.

- Mm-hmm.

- And, but one of the things about daylilies, there's so many different kinds.

I think like 80,000 different ones.

- Oh my gosh.

- Here we have a bicolor.

- You can see that.

- The sepals are yellow and then the petals are the colors, as you see, more of a violet.

That is just gorgeous.

- That's called Chloe.

- [Marty] Chloe.

What a great- - So Chloe is in our garden.

We have lots of one, fun daylilies.

This is called Peppermint Stripe.

- [Marty] Well that's a great name for that.

But that- - Isn't it?

- [Marty] Another thing I'm noticing, John, is that you've got big tall ones and little short ones.

Obviously there's a lot of different height variation in these plants.

- A lot of height.

- [Marty] Mm-hmm.

- [John] Behind us over, here by this tower, is a Mico.

- Wow, talk about tall.

- Mico, Mico is a big tall bloom with, the scapes are tall and the blooms are just spectacular.

- [Marty] Now, would you say we're in the mid-season part?

- Yes.

- This is the middle of June.

Okay, so- - [John] Which is why we've had a lot of daylilies that have already bloomed- - Mm-hmm.

- And those are the early ones.

- Right.

- And then we still have some, as you can see, in the back part of the garden- - Right.

- They're the scapes and the buds, and they haven't bloomed.

They're a later daylily.

- Oh my gosh.

Look at the different, the crusting edges on this that are a different color.

- [John] Yes, Spring Garden Greetings.

- Oh my gosh.

- And we have to, as you can see, we have names... we put on each one of ours.

- Well, that's- - So we name them because we can't, you know, we got too many to remember what they are otherwise.

- No.

Well, you are a smart man.

Now, do you deadhead every day?

- I mean, do you- - Every morning.

- [Marty] Every morning you come out and- - And we come out, and right now we're in full, we had two big five-gallon buckets full of deadheads this morning, so- - Wow.

- This is the time of year.

- Look at this.

I love this soft, almost white.

Just beautiful.

- I think that's Jolly White Giant.

- [Marty] Well, it's well named, it's a huge flower.

Really, really beautiful.

And here's, obviously, this looks like the first flower coming open on this one.

- Yes.

- Look at all the buds.

- That's Minnie Pearl.

- [Marty] Minnie Pearl.

You know what, I should have known.

Mini Pearl has this interesting shiny foliage.

- Yeah.

- Which a lot of them don't have.

That's a re-bloomer also, I do know.

- [John] But, you know, it's just, somebody asked me one day, what is our favorite daylily?

And I said, "If you can tell me your favorite grandchild, "I'll tell you my favorite daylily."

Because they're all beautiful.

- I hear you.

- And we love them all.

- [Marty] I hear you.

Wow.

Now, tell me about this tape that's around here.

- The tape is one of the things that Leslie has found.

It's called deer stopper, and it has a dual purpose.

It has, impregnated in the tape, repellent for deer- - Mm-hmm.

- And then we spray it also with a deer stopper- - I see.

- Spray.

It's a dual action, and it stops the young deer as well as the older deer.

- Wow.

- So far this year.

- [Marty] That's great, because I know deer will eat the buds off of daylilies like candy.

- In a hurry.

It's just like candy.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

This is- - Great Mercies.

- Great Mercies.

- [John] Is the bud count.

One of the things- - Wow.

- [John] You want to see when you're looking at a daylily, is not only the size of the scape, but the branching and the number of bud counts on each one.

As you can see, the branching on these daylilies.

- Yeah!

That's amazing.

- And the scapes are just- - Massive.

- Massive.

- Yeah.

- Big thick scapes.

And that's- - Yeah.

They're not going to flop.

- No.

- Even a heavy rainstorm, it's not going to flop.

- Then we have- - This is a gorgeous one.

Look at that.

- It's called Stolen Treasure.

- Oh.

That is so beautiful.

That just looks like a magazine shot, right there.

How gorgeous is that?

And I'm struck by the different flower forms here also.

We've been looking at- - Yes.

- These little round ones, and now there's this big open- - [John] This big spider, it's called Ruby Red Spider.

- And Spider is a name of- - Or Ruby Spider.

- [Marty] This form, flower form is called Spider- - Yes.

- Correct?

- Yes.

- And it's a nine-inch bloom.

- Wow.

- And you remember, a while ago, we were down there with Strawberry Candy- - Mm-hmm.

- And it's only a four-inch bloom.

- Yeah.

Look At the Difference.

- So they vary accordingly, as to how they were hybridized and it's just, we're very fortunate to have ruby in our yard.

- That is gorgeous.

And I wanted to look at this little interesting one back here with this lighter mark around the throat.

- [John] That's... That's called, what, Spartacus Adorned.

- Spartacus Adorned.

- [John] And that lighter color is a watermark.

- They call that a watermark.

- Yeah.

- [Marty] Well, that's a good name for it.

What a gorgeous Thing.

- [John] And I like the white bordering around the petals and sepals.

- Mm-hmm, the... Well, I just love the different hues.

There's a soft lavender pink and these gorgeous melon colors.

Oh, and these deep, vibrant Reds.

- And they get up here, and these, we have just pulled, broken off many, many, many- - What a gorgeous thing.

- Blooms of this.

It's called Troll Under the Bridge.

(Marty laughing) - What a great name.

- Oh, I just wonder how these people come up with these names.

- [Marty] Well, they must have fun.

- [John] They have to have fun doing it.

- [Marty] And the form on this is different even from the Spider.

It's like longer petals.

- [John] This isn't called, this is An Unusual Form.

These are dancing with- - That's the official name of this kind of flower.

- It's An Unusual Form.

- I see.

Okay.

- If you put it in the show, you would list it as "An Unusual Form."

- I see.

- It's Dances with Giraffes.

- Another great name.

- Now, yes, it is one of our favorite ones, but, like I said, they all are.

- Man, it just looks so exotic.

- It does.

- Yeah.

And then there's this other one, which is a color I just have not seen.

Look at that.

- It's called Grey Witch.

- Well named.

- And it has lots of different colorations in it.

- [Marty] Sure does.

It's got pink and maroon.

- It has that, has the eye- - Lime.

- [John] The eye zone- - Mm-hmm.

- Because, see it goes through all the petals and the sepals.

- Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And then this grayed rose.

- Yeah.

- It's a dusty, very dusty.

- Yeah, yeah.

- [Marty] Wow, that is truly spectacular.

Do you feed them much?

- I'd like to start in the spring- - Mm-hmm.

- About the first of March.

And I use some 10-10-10- - Mm-hmm.

- And that's just a good general fertilizer, it's granular.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I'll just put that out where the daylilies are.

For the most part, they really don't need any fertilizing because they're very self-sustaining.

- [Marty] These are relatively undemanding plants, really, for all the beauty you get.

- [John] This is true, except, if you're going to get up in the morning at five o'clock and come out of here by 5:30 and start deadheading, then yeah, it does take time.

But though any garden that you have, it's going to take some time.

- That's true.

- And you have to be willing to put time into it.

Otherwise, what do you have left over?

- [Marty] John, look at this gorgeous double.

We haven't seen doubles before.

- [John] No, this is actually a truffle.

It's called "Cosmopolitan Truffle."

- Gorgeous.

- So the hybridizer is David Kirchhoff up in Kentucky.

From this one, we go over to "Double Firecracker."

- Oh, the red one, yeah.

- Yeah.

And that's called a double.

- Mm-hmm, oh, I see.

- As opposed to a double and then truffles.

- [Marty] If it says "truffle," it's a Kirchhoff.

- [John] Yeah.

- [Marty] Well, listen, I just want to thank you so much for sharing your gorgeous daylily beds with us.

This is just spectacular.

- You know, that's half the fun of gardening, is getting to share with people.

- That's true.

That is true.

- And I just appreciate you guys coming out and wanting to share it with your audience.

- Oh, I'm sure everybody's just gonna- - And we love "Volunteer Gardener."

- [Marty] Oh, well, we love you.

- [John] Thank you.

It's a great joy.

(pleasant guitar music) - A good soil recipe is really not expensive.

When you buy prepackaged potting soil, it can be really pricey, especially if you've got a lot of pots, containers, or beds.

So we're going to make our own.

So what we're going to start with is topsoil.

So this is one five-gallon bucket of topsoil.

Topsoil is great to use because one, it's cheap, and two, it's already been sterilized to kill all the weeds, seeds, and diseases in it.

So we've got a bucket of topsoil.

We're going to add a half a bucket of peat moss to this.

Okay, so what is peat moss?

Peat moss is basically... decaying moss.

So it's wonderful for holding in moisture.

You can see how moist it is.

So we're going to mix that in.

That's half a bucket to the bucket of topsoil.

So peat moss is great for retaining moisture and keeping your flower pots from not drying out.

All right, to that, we're going to add some food.

So we've got half a bucket, or half a part, of composted cow manure.

So make sure it's composted cow manure, so it's already been through a heat cycle.

And obviously what this is going to do is feed your potting mix.

So this is the feeding of it.

All right, notice I'm wearing gloves and long sleeves because your hands are the best shovels that you've got.

And our last ingredient is a fourth of a part of sand.

Now, what's the purpose of sand?

The good thing about it is that it keeps the soil loose, and so you're not going to have compaction in your soil or in your pot or your bed.

So all we're going to do is just keep mixing this up until it's nice and mixed, and then we're going to transfer this to our bed, our pot.

The good thing about this is it's got a long shelf life, so you can mix a whole bunch of it up and keep it through the whole season.

And also, it's really inexpensive.

So I've taken that soil recipe that I just mixed up and I've incorporated it into this bed.

Now, one of the things you might want to think about is double digging.

So what that means is dig into the soil that's already there, mix that soil mix into it.

And then what that does is it makes sure that your plants stay good and hydrated.

It pulls the moisture that's already in the soil into the mix.

That's especially important if you're not using irrigation like I've got.

Now, one of the things you want to make sure and do is orient your bed appropriately.

This runs north and south.

That's very important because you can get maximum sun exposure that way.

The other thing you want to consider is how wide your bed is.

This is three feet by 25 feet.

The length isn't so much as important as the width.

So three feet is perfect.

This way you don't have to step into the bed and compact that soil in order to work it.

You can stay on the perimeter of it and work both sides of it perfectly.

Now, the good thing about this is that this is long-lasting.

So one of the things that you can do is you garden year-round.

Once spring, summer, vegetables are finished, you just till up the soil, put new plants in there and go again with some fall cole crops.

It's easy to rotate things out and you especially need to rotate things out when you're in a raised bed like this.

So I'm not going to plant the same things in this bed this year that I planted last year.

Rotating those out eliminates disease pressure that might be already in the soil.

So by taking these steps, what you're doing is you're ensuring that your garden is set up for success.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org and find us on these platforms.

(upbeat music) (pleasant music)