Sonatini Alasca Amaryllis

If you've ever wished you could transport those huge, velvety Christmas Amaryllis blooms into your summer garden, Sonatini Alasca is the variety you've been looking for! A more compact, very free-flowering variety hardy through zone 7, it is literally a garden variety -- plant it out in spring for glorious summer color!

The first thing you'll notice about Alasca is that its bulbs are smaller than the gigantic Amaryllis grown indoors over the winter holidays. These smaller bulbs produce slightly smaller plants -- 12 to 18 inches tall is typical. But what these plants lack in height, they make up for in width: you can expect Alasca to reach 12 to 15 inches wide, and not just because of the strappy green foliage. This is a many-flowered variety that will wow you!

The blooms are pure white, fully double, and borne in huge numbers. Whereas you might get 2 to 4 blooms from a winter Amaryllis, with Alasca you'll enjoy anywhere from 6 to 10, opening at once in early to midsummer. The petals have the same waxy, firm hold as their winter cousins', so you can expect the flowers to last and last.

And Alasca is far cold-hardier than its zone 9-11 cousins. It goes through zone 7 in the north, or may be lifted before first frost, stored in a warm dry place over winter, and then replanted in spring. So easy, so beautiful, so carefree! Make it part of your partly shaded bed, border, or container this season.