Eucaris Lilly

This is the plant I "smuggled" back from Jamaica last winter. It is getting ready for its' first bloom! Now what to do with it this winter????

Take it indoors and grow it as a houseplant! Keep it warm, moist and put it in good light and try to keep the humidity relatively high. If yours is anything like mine, it will thrive and multiply with the speed of lightning. Oh, and enjoy the beautiful, fragrant flowers! :-)

Yes..I remember their fragrance in Jamaica...thanks so much.

Look what my new Labradoodle has done to the one and only flower I have been waiting for since last February! Will it send out more? The little Dickens!

where the bloom was

Just be patient. It will send out more flowers in time...

Should I fertilize it?

Only if it would have been fertilized anyway. Forcing it along with fertilizer at this point will not encourage more bloom spikes, but rather encourage more green, leafy growths. The best way to coax Eucharis into flowering is to provide it with *very* warm temperatures (85º F or above) for about two months or so, and then lower the temperatures to normal after that. You should see flower spikes emerge several weeks after the temperature drops.

A lot has been written that this plant can be encouraged to flower by periodically allowing the plant to dry out to the point of wilting and yellowing foliage and then increasing drinks to normal, but I feel that this practice unnecessarily stresses the plant. Warmth is much safer and makes for a much more vigorous, happy plant. I keep mine on top of a seedling heat mat when I want to give it more warmth. Works like a charm every time.

Well I will bring it in and then just keep it moist but the temp. will never be 85 degrees probably until next summer. I remember in Jamaica the temperatures would be very chilly in the morning and in the evening. . . and not scorching hot in the middle of the day like it is here in Baltimore in the summer.

So happy to have found this thread: worth the searching!

I was given one, years ago. It's bloomed one time. Then I read about it loving water and now it's very full and leafy. It's in our sunniest window and I hope to get more flowers.

One year later...............on front porch all summer...one bloom that did not open completely..now inside for the winter. I fertilized it and gave it plenty of water.........................?????

Ispahan wrote:

"A lot has been written that this plant can be encouraged to flower by periodically allowing the plant to dry out to the point of wilting and yellowing foliage and then increasing drinks to normal, but I feel that this practice unnecessarily stresses the plant."

I've never read about going that far with the holding back on the water, and I agree that it seems a bit unnessarily stressful, but it is what they would experience in their native Colombia.

I also agree that cutting back on the water periodically is necessary for Eucharis to bloom. That's what nature gives them and that's what they need.

Eucharis grandiflora comes from a year-round warm climate and it is a seasonal one with a winter rainy season alternating with a summer dry season. The plant needs the drier period to initiate bud elongation. It's always warm in that equatorial land.

Sometimes a person's watering "schedule" will unintentionally produce a drier period which is sufficient to promote a bloom cycle. It is so easy here in the south to let a potted plant go too dry in summer. You'd have to be home all day to not let it happen.

I experimented with mine this year to see if they would bloom without a drier "rest". I read a post saying that the dry period wasn't necessary and so I thought I'd give it a try just to see. I don't recall where I saw the post, could have been at DG or somewhere else, I just don't remember. Ialso don't recall if the person said they didn't need the severe treatment mentioned above or that a drier rest period of any sort wasn't necessary. Again, I don't recall.

Did doing without a drier "rest' period work? NO.

Not at all. Not one bloom did I get by having my plants kept constantly moist. I fed them. My potfull is quite lush and beautiful, and the bulbs are large enough and the pot is solidly full of roots. They were outdoors from spring (as soon as it was warm enough) through most of September. We had *lots* of days and nights in the 80s and 90sF. Enough to satisfy the Eucharis. I know this. I've grown them before and with the drier rest I always got blooms, both outdoors and indoors at normal warm household temps.

I didn't bring them indoors into the cooler temps to see if they would flower in response to the temperature alone, but actually that would have been the time to run them dry. The equator runs through southern Colombia, so there isn't much seasonal temperature change in most of Colombia, if any. In less tropical climates, the dry season is cooler and the rainy season warmer. The highlands are cooler,relatively speaking, in Colombia, but it's still very warm, and that really means always hot, or nearly so. So, maybe lowering the temperature isn't as effective a way as altering the watering schedule is, but it *might* help. It just wouldn't be a condition the'd experience in Colombia, AFAIK.

So, while I think the severe drying out, to the point of losing foliage might not be necessary, it would be in keeping with what the bulbs experience in nature.

I never intentionally dried mine that much, but I think my busy schedule of work left me with so little time to keep them consistantly moist in summer that I spurred them on without trying. They would wilt, but so did everything else. It's darn hot in 7b! They'd lose some leaves due to that and to naturally shedding older foliage. It happens.

After I read that a dry rest would produce blooms, I followed it and always got flowers, several times a year. It's the stressing that nature gives them, pure 100% natural climatic cycles of dry and wet that results in flowering.

It isn't cruel at all. It reminds them of their home, so far away.

Robert.