How To Cut Spent Amaryllis/Hippeastrum Bloom Stalks in Difficult Spaces

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Posted by @mcash70 on
Once the beautiful blooms have faded on your Amaryllis plants, the bloom stalks will need cutting if you are not letting the plant set seed pods. This will let the energy go into the production of the leaves to feed the bulb.

Great care should be taken while doing this as you can easily nick the leaves or another bloom stalk with a sharp knife. I know because I have done it. The stalks are very fibrous and tough.

I recently had a dilemma about how to cut two spent bloom stalks without damaging a third that had come up between the two spent ones. Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/a931c7

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with the idea of slipping a plastic card between them. That way I would not damage the new bloom stalk if the knife should suddenly go through the stalk. Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/31017a Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/16dc75
Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/ff8de1 Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/887293It worked perfectly. No damage on either side of my new bloom stalk.



I had another Amaryllis that had the leaves come up between two bloom stalks; one stalk was spent while the other was still growing. Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/915625 This time I found a stiff piece of cardboard and cut a piece about the size of a credit card, then carefully slipped it between the leaves and the stalk; once again it worked perfectly, no damage to the leaves from my very sharp paring knife. Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/83dd7c
Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/d6b71e Thumb of 2013-12-29/mcash70/abe07b

 
Comments and Discussion
Thread Title Last Reply Replies
Great Tip by Joannabanana Nov 29, 2015 12:20 AM 12
cutting amaryllis by Irus1 Feb 16, 2015 11:36 PM 1
Wish I'd had thought of this, a lot time ago! by bsharf Jan 17, 2015 9:55 AM 1

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