The Ace up your sleeve for holiday gifting?

This season’s Box Kit Bonanza takes us up the aisles of a quieter, more personable alternative to the big box stores. Three familiar names on the boxes and a brand we haven’t reviewed before were secured from our local Ace Hardware store. Is Ace the place for amaryllis box kit happiness? Let’s see.

The DeGroot branding is what brought Emaryllis to these kits. The Michigan based company’s kits are not those offered in some of the other major hardware stores, but Ace and Tractor Supply Company are in easy shopping distance for most residents of North America.

These kits were purchased and potted on November 17, 2025. While marked as originally priced at $15.99, they are on sale for a more reasonable $7.99. Emaryllis would have had to think long and hard before buying these at full retail. Ok, so we’ve got these home, let’s open them up!

Bulbs grown in the Southern Hemisphere, and sold in the Northern Hemisphere are harvested and held at cool temperatures for months to hold them back from putting up scapes prematurely. Hadeco of South Africa has employed this to advantage for decades, offering bulbs that will easily bloom at or even before Christmas. Now South American growers are offering the same early blooming promise; but there are potential downsides. Once these bulbs are exposed to warmer temperatures, they are sending up flowers for what seems like a long delayed spring blooming time. All right, let’s see if we can guess country of origin of these bulbs. First up is the Christmas classic, ‘Red Lion’.

We are pleased as punch so far! This bulb kit has the right ingredients for gift giving. If given to a host for Thanksgiving or an early December holiday party, it would provide all that is needed for at least bloom scapes, if not flowers around Christmas. If we had to guess, we would say that this bulb was grown by Saad-Assaf in Israel. Growing in the Northern Hemisphere means late summer harvesting, and several weeks of cool temperature programming. It’s more a matter of getting adequate time for dry cool treatment to send the scapes up the neck of the bulb in time for winter holidays, and before they would more naturally bloom in spring.

Now let’s take a look at our next kit containing the venerable pink favorite, ‘Apple Blossom’!

The kind of premature growth we see here means that it is more likely this one id coming from Peru, rather than Israel. While there may be other companies growing amaryllis bulbs in Peru, one stands out as a major supplier: AgroFloral Peru. While their online catalog doesn’t not show ‘Apple Blossom’ as a variety they grow, they do offer the similar ‘Cherry Blossom’. Is that what we will end up with? One thing for sure, we will know sooner rather than later!

It’s really interesting that these boxes note bulb origin from two possible countries, and it looks like we have one from each Israel and Peru so far! They show the advantages and disadvantages of producing from one hemisphere for the other. In the case of the Israeli bulb, it is a matter of whether it will actually bloom by Christmas. In the case of the Southern Hemisphere bulbs it is a matter of what will be left by Christmas, if anything. Can these bulbs be offered as fall blooming houseplants not tied to Christmas specifically? The carton design is not helping in this case. OK, so on tour this kit!

Another bulb from Peru it seems. There are two reasons Hadeco bulbs from South Africa have not traditionally been used in these gift kits. They are probably a bit more expensive due to shipping from greater distance, but it was always understood that they would be best forced for sale as potted plants in bud and bloom for Christmas. These days we see both Peruvian and South African grown bulbs forced for sale as potted plants already in scape in November and December. Here is what can happen when these same bulbs are sent to warm shops when they were ready to sprout yesterday!

Since it seems certain that this bulb is from Peru, it is worth noting that as with ‘Apple Blossom’, ‘Christmas Gift’ is not a cultivar that that AgroFloral grows. As with last season’s kits, we must wonder if this is actually ‘Denver’, ‘Siberia’, or their own ‘White Candle’.

A few days after potting, and both be-scaped kits are greening up nicely after getting some (sorry, DeGroot instructions) direct sunlight on them. The southwest facing window they are in gets full sun for at least 4 hours before the sun sets. Two scapes per bulb is also a good showing. It is not quite fair to venture a guess at what cultivar we have in the white flowering kit’s deformed and somewhat stunted scape. The second scape should make things more clear, but right now we are leaning towards ‘Denver’ as we saw with our “Just The Basics” kits last season. The ‘Apple Blossom’ scape is showing some pink coloration, so we can hope it is true (or the very similar ‘Cherry Blossom’). More to come!

While the identity of our ‘Apple Blossom’ kit is in question, the beauty is not. While we only have three flowers on the first scape, the coloration is a sight to behold. It is pretty certain that both of these were grown in Peru, which also most certainly means Agro Floral is the producer. They list only ‘Cherry Blossom’ in their ranks, not ‘Apple Blossom’. Those two are about impossible to discern, and both can be variable in presentation. It seems ‘Cherry Blossom’ (registered as ‘Cherry Bloss’) is a bit cooler in color. Either way, it is what the box depicts, so we have a win! Let’s see if the second scapes yield an even better showing.

One week has passed since New year’s Day, and our final kit is opening its first buds. But something seems off, in a good kind of way. Emaryllis enjoys pursuing a mystery. As the buds colored up, they didn’t seem to be scarlet red, but rather a rosier shade. What did we get?!

While the other two kits seem to have stalled, our ‘Red Lion’ kit had the chance to shine without competition. At 58 cm (nearly 2 feet high) the scape is impressive, but we are lucky it is so straight or it may have toppled the lightweight pot. Four large (19 cm) flowers were perched at the top. So no issues besides the long wait? Just one, this isn’t ‘Red Lion’ and my guess that this was the one bulb from Israel rather than Peru seems spot on. The clue? The color. ‘Red Lion’ has long defined a Christmas Red amaryllis by being a shade of scarlet. These flowers have a cooler color cast, leaning towards rose pink. For a few days, E was betting that this would be ‘Amigo’, another variety in the firm’s “Open Stock” (not trademarked) portfolio. As it opened, no faded white star center had us looking over the remainder of Saad-Assaf’s offerings, and ta-da! ‘Red Paradise’ is one of their own hybrids that had slipped my mind. It was originally offered touting bronzed foliage. We found that trait exaggerated as it only occurred when grown in strong light. Grown in the shortest daylight of the year, we have what you see. It was nice to photograph this one again, and we can update our entry in the Photo Library someday as a bonus. The lesson that we have learned time and time again? It is better to get bulbs into these kits that are anything but in a rush. With the amount of Christmas gifty themes all over these boxes, only one would have had a chance of being opened and planted near the holidays with a reasonable chance of success. Some of these kits are still available on post holiday discounts, but buying without peaking inside would be folly. Traditionally these kits were supplied with bulbs from the Netherlands, but economic circumstances have made that unusual today. If bulbs are to be supplied from the Southern Hemisphere, they need to be treated differently or selected for their ability NOT to grow immediately and without the cue of watering. These bulbs are best used for people buying already growing plants forced for the holidays. We won’t even mention the labeling thing, not one of these kits was correctly labeled. Ooops, I guess we just mentioned it 😉 At least we can rejoice in that the color selections were all correct, and most would never be to the wiser as to the exact variety.