Scadoxus multiflorus - how to bloom?

Jim McKenney jamesamckenney@verizon.net
Wed, 01 May 2013 07:45:20 PDT
Anders, here in Maryland. where summertime day temperatures regularly go over 32 degrees C (in July 1936 it reached 43 degrees C!); there are on average about 30 days per year when the temperature is at or over 32 degrees C. Not only is it hot, it is humid. Not, I think, like Denmark.

Scadoxus multiflorus multiflorus grows well and easily here. My plants have been in the same pot for years. During the frost free season, the pot is placed in a dish of water and left out in the sun. I try to remember to keep water in the dish at all times.  Some years I throw in some granular fertilizer. In the autumn, I keep a watch out for night frosts and bring the pot in for that night if they occur. Otherwise, the pot stays outside until the foliage ripens sometime in early November. Then the pot comes inside and spends the winter dry in the heated basement. In April or May it goes outside again to repeat the cycle. 

The soil used is a heavy loam. 

Other than that, it gets no special care. And the pot has bloomed every year, some years more abundantly than others. 

Jim McKenney
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where the tree Davidia involucrata has about a thousand flowers now, tulips are at their height and the first tree peonies are in bloom. 



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