Amaryllis flowering during 2015
By balcony
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Amaryllis flowering during 2015
My Amaryllis are getting started on flowering in earnest during February 2015. I had one red Amaryllis flower for a few weeks during January. Another one had a scape tall enough to warrant moving it into the living room from its place on our bedroom windowsill.
This 1st one of 2015 is pure red:
ALL my Amaryllis plants come from my own fertilization of my own bulbs in 2007. In 2001 I bought 3 bulbs, one pure red, one pure white & one a red with white stripes. In the spring of 2007 while they were in flower I decided to try my hand at cross fertilizing them. The resultant seeds I sowed a few months later & they germinated like Mustard & Cress! I ended up with an embarrassing amount of seedlings that I didn’t know what to do with! I decided to plant them up & grow them on. Four years later, in April 2010, they finally flowered!
Since then I’ve got the majority of them to flower every year. Many have produced offsets which I have potted up & they in their turn have also flowered & made baby bulbs as well! I’m now showered under with all the plants I have.
Anglo-American Hybrids
To make things even worse about 3 years ago I received some Amaryllis pollen from a lady in the USA. I had no idea she was sending me it till the day it arrived at my flat! She hadn’t asked me if I’d like some or warned me before hand & so it came as a complete surprise, out of the blue! Anyway I used some of the pollen to cross fertilize some of my plants that had flowers open at that time. A few took & started to produce seed but after a few weeks they died. The couple of plants that did produce seed produced so much I tried to give it away – without much success. I send some of the seeds back to the lady who had sent me the pollen & others I sowed myself.
The seeds I sowed I called ’Anglo-American Hybrids’ & these have now been growing for 3 years, I think, so I’m not expecting them to flower this year. It normally takes Amaryllis 4 years to flower from seed. I therefore don’t expect them to flower till next year.
I have at least 20 of these ‘Anglo-American Hybrid’ bulbs!:
Amaryllis February 2015
Here are a few photos of my Amaryllis flowering away on our living room table:
8 inch blooms:
I had 4 Amaryllis plants blooming on our living room table on Valentine’s Day 2015! The flowers are HUGE – I measured them on a couple of plants & one, white with red veining, has 8inch flowers! Another one, Red with white star, has 7" flowers. It’s practically impossible to take photos of the tape measure across the flowers as they reflex a bit & at least 2 hands are necessary to straighten them out enough to take a photo – but I need a third to take the photo!
These plants are my own seedlings, grown form my own cross fertilized seeds at home. They have no names & I can only identify them by colour. Looking on Facebook, where I’m a member of 3 Amaryllis groups (one in Spanish), I see some of mine look very similar to named hybrids!
On the windowsill in our bedroom there are another 5 or 6 with scapes which I will bring into the living room when they start to show colour. The same in our 2nd bedroom where there are another 7! In our kitchen window there are several more as well! So I shall have lots more Amaryllis flowering all through March & into April! :-))
Valentine’s Day 2015 accident:
Unfortunately the 2nd of 2015 had an accident! My wife & I were trying to move the pots further back on the table so we could use it for our meal but as I was moving this one it tipped over as it was very top heavy. Trying to grab the flower stem before it hit the table it hit the side of my hand & the head of four flowers broke clean off! It was just above the top of the cane I’d put in to hold the stem upright. ;-((
I rushed into the kitchen & found a big, old coffee jar & filled it with water into which I put the broken head of flowers. I then gave it to my wife & told her that even though I hadn’t bought her any roses for Valentine’s Day I could give her some rose coloured flowers at least! :-D)
Amaryllis 2nd of 2015 headless & now in a jar of water:
Closer look:
In this last photo I’ve brought the 2nd & 5th together so you can appreciate the differences between the two plants:
The lower of the two is the one whose head was broken off. It has a white star in the centre & is a little lighter in colour. The petals form a more rounded flower than the one above it. The 5th one of 2015 is a little darker & the “star” has much longer, more pronounced white lines. The 3 petals that form a triangle are longer than in the 2nd one. This gives the appearance of a narrower star shape to the whole flower.
In the coming weeks there will be many more – perhaps lasting me through May!
16 Feb, 2015
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Comments
These are astonishing Balcony. I knew you had a lot but not that they were from your own seed. Your patience has certainly been rewarded. I hope your OH is as fond of them as you are, bless her! I remember your amazing pics from last year.
I finally lost the one I'd had for over 30 years, bulb and offset so I bought another from Tesco and it didn't grow at all - it must have been in the box in the warm for too long.
16 Feb, 2015
You have a talent with Amarylis...that's clear.That first one looks huge!
16 Feb, 2015
You certainly do have a fantastic talent for growing Amaryllis David.
16 Feb, 2015
Some beauties Balcony! What dedication to the cause! I am, of course being very cheeky...but would you care to explain what else you have stuffed on top of that cupboard in your second bedroom? ;)
16 Feb, 2015
isn't disheartening when this happens. Such is the life of gardening. the waiting is exciting, but the anticipated bloom is what we are really wanting. Anyhow, I am so interested in your Amaryllis story. Mine are getting out of hand, but nothing like yours. I am an admirer of almost all. I don't like the ones that are spidery. Keep showing us pics and I will be checking in on them. Are those in the bedroom resting or what?
17 Feb, 2015
Gosh you are clever Balcony they are all beautiful :o))
17 Feb, 2015
They really are lovely Balcony...
17 Feb, 2015
Very impressive :)
17 Feb, 2015
If I didn't know better I would say that you're obsessed!
I have some Hippeastrum seed (Hippeastrum aulicum x H.aulicum) - do you have any tips on germination?
17 Feb, 2015
Well thank you all for so many responses! :-)) I so glad that so many of you are interested in these lovely flowers! :-))
I would like to say to those of you who think I'm very clever at growing such wonderful flowers I'd like first to thank you & then clarify that they are no harder to grow than Daffodils! (Just that you have to keep them frost free - unlike Daffs!)
Since I've been a member of GoY I have posted many blogs on my Amaryllis. Some of you I know have some of my Amaryllis blogs saved in their favourites. :-))
@Steragram: I've mentioned in previous blogs on Amaryllis that I have grown them all from my very own seeds. Patience, yes, I suppose you do have to have patience if you are going to grow them from seed but I knew when I decided to grow them it would be at least 4 years before I saw any results.
As to my OH well she puts up with me & doesn't complain very often but she doesn't particularly like them! :-(( She finds them too strident as she likes small flowers that are much more delicate.
Sorry to hear your bulb of so many years has finally passed away. :-(( I was saddened also by the the demise of the one you bought, they are not very cheap & to lose one is disheartening. :-(( If you like I could send you a bulb or two.
17 Feb, 2015
@CK: Not cheeky at all, besides the pots of hibernating Amaryllis, (some of which have since sprung back to life & are carrying scapes a foot or more high), there are several bags of balloons that our grandkids have made us conserve for them! A few date back as far as Halloween! (Black & white ones)
@Wells: You are quite right in your observation, they are indeed hibernating & have been up there since November! If you read my answer to CK above I explained to her about them.
I'm so pleased you like them & will be following my photos of them in the future as well. I've written quite a few blogs on them if you want to look back at them! :-))
@Meanie: I wouldn't say I was "obsessed" with Amaryllis it's just that I find them so easy to grow (as easy as Daffodils!) & they multiply so quickly on me I've ended up with so many that, literally, there is no space for them any longer at home! The 3 windowsills are chock-a-block full of pots that the ones on the top of the cupboard in the 2nd bedroom have no other place to go! They are now starting to come out of hibernation & will need light, but where do I put them?
As for tips on growing Amaryllis from seed I can only go from my own experience. I sowed them, flat & spaced out, on the top of a tray of compost & then covered them with only enough compost to hide them from view. When they germinate they pull themselves a little further down. I've read of people floating them in water & I've seen some photos of the seeds floating & even germinating, but I've never tried this method myself. I put them in an airing cupboard inside a plastic bag as at the time I didn't have an electric propagator. They germinated like Mustard & Cress!
One of my very first blogs on GoY was dedicated to my experience of growing Amaryllis from seed. Perhaps you would like to look it up in my blogs from 2009.
17 Feb, 2015
As I recall (thanks for the prompt) now I commented on it!
So heat and a bit of moisture then.
17 Feb, 2015
Below is a link to my first blog on Amaryllis grown from my own cross pollinated seeds. Hope you will find it of of interest, Meanie, & a help to growing your own seeds successfully. :-)) Looking forward to "progress reports" in the future! :-D)
http://www.growsonyou.com/balcony/blog/3720-amaryllis-from-seed
18 Feb, 2015
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My word you are clever Balcony, they are really wonderful, every one of them.......
16 Feb, 2015