Three Times a Lady (twice)

‘Lady Jane’ is a 1995 introduction that has seen intensive production among the double amaryllis clan until the last several years. This year it is widely available once again which caught Emaryllis by surprise. There are more and more and better and better double amaryllises (can we just call them ‘amarylli’ here?) nowadays, but any opportunity to get a newer and better image for the photo gallery was reason enough to make the purchase. The fact that John Scheeper’s/Van Engelen makes these kits under their own brand also made for an opportunity to contrast its quality with the other two mass marketed gift box kits in our 2023 Box Kit Bonanza. Let’s go in for a deeper dive…

Purchased by mail order for $18.95, this kit arrived at our door November 7, 2023 and was potted up 5 days later. This is a higher priced kit than many found at grocers, big box stores and the like. Are these extra dollars well spent? Will the performance bring us to our knees and cause the lesser priced kits to wimper in shame? Time will tell.

Emaryllis isn’t sure if these kits get much space at retail garden centers, and this kit was purchased the way most probably are, by mail order. The advice provided here is above the level of most kits, not only in detail, but in accuracy. Applause, please! Near the end of the last paragraph we find a relevant tidbit. There is a notation that the bulb is to measure 30-32 cm in circumference. This is far larger than the typical kit offers, and perhaps worthy of a word like “premium”. We’ve seen bulbs as tiny as 22 cm in some cheap kits. This has now raised our expectation for a great showing! While not explicitly stated, the references to “Dutch amaryllis” indicate that the bulb was produced in the Netherlands. Many kits now use bulbs produced in Peru, which gives them the opportunity to bloom more easily by Christmas, and conversely, the danger of blooming way before then, even while still in the box. Cool storage before sale is all the more critical for bulbs produced in the Southern Hemisphere, and major retailers are seldom up to the task.

Opening the top of the box shows a loose bulb of better than usual size. The roots on top are dried, and we always hope for live, fleshy roots that can quickly produce smaller rootlets for taking up water. While larger bulbs have enough moisture on reserve for elongation of flower scapes, they won’t be at their best.

Above we see what may be one of the best examples of excellent root preservation on a kit bulb. The bulb itself over the plastic bag of media disallowed the drying seen above the bulb where roots were exposed to drier air. OK, so the roots are good, the bulb is firm. The promised 30-32 cm bulb measures officially at 29.5 cm circumference, which is only a smidge shy. Certainly no reason to pout. A bag of media versus a hard coir puck is appreciated. It looks like mostly coir, but no waiting for a bone dry disc to soak up water. Plus, the bag of media is soft pillow for the bulb to rest on, decreasing chances of injury in transit. Still, it is very dry, and needs warm water to moisten it properly. The pot….the pot is most excellent! 14 cm diameter, high quality plastic, classy dark green color, a snap-on saucer, a vented lid; all good. But it’s those drainage holes, 15 of them to be exact, that has Emaryllis doing a jig! So many kits come with drain-less pots that can spell doom, especially for the novice grower. This is one ace box kit! Let’s pot ‘er up!

The media turns out to be exactly the right amount. The bulb is quite snug here, and a smaller bulb would have demanded more media. The company making these kits up has done their homework. The shows virtually no growth yet, so no chance of damaged sprouts. Will she hold out until Christmas?

The topper lid for the pot is nice touch in terms of offering a very finished look. But, once the plant starts growing, it will be impossible to remove if desired…it would have to be surgically removed using sturdy shears. It might offer additional stability if the lightweight media allows the bulb to shift around as the scapes elongate and bloom, but seeing the soilless media to determine when to water is an issue. In a compromise, it is left on without snapping it firmly into place in order to allow visual inspection of the media. Leaving it in place will give us a complete picture of what the kit maker’s aesthetic intent is. So there you have it, time to put the kit in a warm place with plenty of light. Then we wait.

Just one month after potting (December 13, 2023) we have results! First…the identification is correct. While Emaryllis was skeptical that this older cultivar was still in production, here it is confirmed. Two scapes of about 18 cm height combined with a bit of foliage makes for nice showing for an amaryllis. The large flowers in proportion to the pot size are the stock and trade of these bold winter show-offs! One quibble; we have only three flowers on our first scape. A disaster? No. But still, we want to see four flowers as minimum in modern Hippeastrum hybrids. Let’s just say that since these are double flowers, that all of those extra tepals (petals) go some way to mitigate any disappointment.

All-in-all, this is a nice showing. While in bloom well before Christmas, Americans have always shown a preference for getting a jump-start on the holidays. Witness Christmas decor popping up as soon as the day after Halloween. Poinsettia marketers have had much more success selling hybrids in shades of orange closer to Thanksgiving than trying to market pink forms for holidays after Christmas. We are officially done with those after New Year’s day. The deal here is that these are often sold as gifts, but waiting for them to be opened on Christmas days means that the bulb may have bloomed and dried up in the box, or at very least more roots have crisped up and the bulb will have lost some vitality. Proper (cool) storage is a must!

With one flower left from the first scape, we now also have two newly opened flowers on the second one. With large, fluffy double flowers, three open at once is a show. As Emaryllis has said many times, these gift box kits seem designed to promise Christmas flowers, and this kit has delivered. The idea of waiting until Christmas to unpack and pot up this kit? Who knows. Maybe a bulb programmed in the Netherlands would have held without much growth if kept cool and dry. Emaryllis has a fiendish idea for next year; do just that. It will probably end up a wild ride, with disasters aplenty. A cautionary BKB next season? It just might happen.

‘Lady Jane’ is normally capable of producing four flowers, with one pair opening much earlier than the last, making for an extended show. This was a nice sized bulb, but perhaps over 30 cm is what she needs to perform that well. This would be too large for most kits supplied with small pots. Its also not hard to imagine that a good number of these kits sold did produce two scapes with four flowers each. Perhaps Lady Luck was not with our ‘Lady Jane’ for us. The important thing here though, is that the show has been well timed, and beautiful. And not quite done. We have one more bud yet to open.

Our lady’s slowly developing final bud…is a dud! By 5, January 2024 it started looking flaccid, and on the 6th, the pedicel collapsed and the bud became papery. This wouldn’t have been such a disappointment if this scape had borne 5 buds, but that it only started with three makes the value of this kit more questionable. There was a nice overlapping pass off from the first scape to the second happening right at Christmas, we will grant her that. Many double amaryllis hybrids extend their show by spacing out the opening from one bud to the next more widely than their single counterparts. This works out well, especially when these can often be very large flowers. Giving each flower some space, both physically, and in time is a nice way of appreciating these in all of their excess tepalage (whether neat or sloppy). In this case we feel deprived. It will be some time, if ever, that Emaryllis tries photographing this old variety from kit-size bulbs. We’ll hold the plant bit longer, on the off chance of a third scape, but it looks like we have a wrap.