If you grow Amaryllis bulbs, and keep them from year to year, you’ve probably had one or more fall over from the weight of the huge flowers. If this happens and the stem breaks, place it in a vase as a cut flower. But if you want to support the stem before it falls over, it’s easy to stake them.
I don’t care for the look of a straight bamboo stick, which is a normal way to support a heavy stem like this. Instead, I go to my red-twig dogwood shrubs outside and cut an assortment of stems that are brightly colored but natural looking. Here are some options:
I took one cluster of flowers and supported it with four straight red-twig dogwood branches. I tied the twigs together with a very thin, green ribbon.
I clipped some red-twig dogwood that had lots of side twigs as well. I put three of these into the edges of the pot, then took those side-twigs and wound them around and around to hold the amaryllis blooms in place. I held the twigs in place with small pieces of green wire – see the next photo.
Small pieces of thin green wire hold the twigs in place but don’t show very much.
Here are three Amaryllis plants being supported in different ways, but all by the very natural looking red-twig dogwood branches. For the plant on the left I used the “turn the twigs into a cage” method with wire. The one in the center is supported by four straight sticks, all held with a thin ribbon. And the bloom on the right is a twiggy dogwood stem in back of the Amaryllis bloom spike, with a thin ribbon supporting the bloom in place.
What a beautiful and organic way to support amaryllis blooms, thank you for the inspiration!