Amaryllis that emerged in dark basement and has white leaves

Question

Hello. I’ve had great success getting my amaryllis to bloom year after year. Happily, I do this sans any chemicals. This year, I had a lot of extra dormant amaryllis bulbs stored in their pots (with soil) in a dark and cool basement. I had planned to stagger the times that I brought the bulbs out of dormancy. However, when I checked on them today, many of the bulbs had emerged in the darkness of the basement. They have multiple whitish/green leaves as well as stems and buds. Would you advise cutting off all of this unexpected growth or should I put the pots in the sun and hope that the whitish foliage will turn a deeper green? I can send photos if that would be helpful. My concern is that the bulbs have expended some of their energy to put out this growth, so I don’t know if they’ll have enough reserve to take a wounding and regrow “normally”. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

It sounds like you just accidentally forced all your bulbs! The bad news is that you won’t be able to stagger them, but the good news is that they should be fine. Forced amaryllis bulbs usually start their lives in darkness and emerge white. Yours are maybe a little further along than ideal, but they ought to color up as soon as they have some light. Don’t cut them back.
You can read more about your newfound talent for bulb forcing here: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/bulbs/bgen/forcing-bulbs.htm