The Garden Community for Garden Lovers

Difference between Anglo-American and Ordinary hybrid Amaryllis

balcony

By balcony

7 comments


As several of you ask about the difference between my “ordinary” hybrid Amaryllis & my “Anglo-American” hybrids I’ll explain again, though I think I’ve really explained a few times before!

(The 4 scapes in the middle of these two photos are Anglo-American hybrids, only the end two are older Amaryllis hybrids)

The “ordinary” hybrids are the ones I’ve been growing from my own seeds since before I joined GoY back in April 2009! (One of the first blogs I ever wrote on GoY was about growing Amaryllis from seed!)

These came about because in 2001 I bought 3 Amaryllis bulbs from a Dutch trader in what was the very first International Market held in Huntingdon. These were unnamed, unpacked bulbs I bought in a street market. These bulbs grew & flowered for several years until one year it occurred to me to try & cross-fertilize them & try to get some viable seed. I’d tried some years before when we still lived in Cuenca, Spain. At that time none of the seeds germinated. This time I had an overwhelming number of seeds that germinated!

After 4 years these flowered for the first time & I used a photo of me standing in front of them all, (now we call them “selfies”, back then we called them “self portraits”!), flowering on our living room table, as my avatar photo on GoY for many years.

Then, in 2012, a lady, on another gardening forum I also post on, sent me some, unsolicited, pollen from her Amaryllis. As I had some in flower when it arrived I tried cross-fertilizing some of my plants with the pollen. Only one bulb gave me a couple of seedpods full of seeds. I sowed some & sent some to the lady in the USA who’d sent me the pollen.

(Unfortunately she has never told me if she sowed them nor if they have grown or flowered for her :-(( )

When these germinated I thought I need some way of identifying them in the future as they all look a like & to be able to send a “progress report” to the lady in the USA. The name “Anglo-American hybrids” came to my mind, as, after all, the pollen came from the USA but the bulbs from the UK.

So there you have it – in a (rather big) nutshell! – why some are just simply called “Amaryllis hybrids” & others are called *"Anglo-American hybrids"*.

Of the “Anglo-American hybrids” I currently have 4 bulbs on our living room table, one of which has opened its first flower today for the first time since sowing 4 years ago! There are 3 more in bud, one of which will flower in a day or two, while there are two others which will still take a few more days. While, in the bedroom, on the windowsill, there are more bulbs with scapes at differing heights which will flower during February.

I have 20 pots of these “Anglo-American hybrids” in all! One has finished flowering, one is opening today & several more will be opening their flowers for the first time ever as the week progresses.

The photos I’ve included in this blog are for illustrative purposes really as most of my photos from the past few years are still locked away on the hard disk of my old desktop computer which I have no access to. :-((

Some of them, nevertheless, are relevant to what I’ve written in this blog. As they all have the date they were taken on them you will easily see which photos relate to the present time.

More blog posts by balcony

Previous post: My Amaryllis hybrids have now begun to flower!

Next post: Steragram out of action!



Comments

 

Wonderful!!!!

25 Jan, 2016

amy
Amy
 

You are very knowledgeable Balcony ,all good information for anyone growing Amaryllis ...

25 Jan, 2016

 

Very informative thank you.

26 Jan, 2016

 

Thank you, ladies, for your comments. :-))

I hope I've made it clear now just which Amaryllis are which!

Amaryllis hybrids are the older ones that have been flowering since 2010.

Anglo-American hybrids are the newest ones that have started to flower this January - 4 years after I sowed the seeds.

4 out of 20 Anglo-American hybrids have now flowered so far this year. I have another 3 in bud on the living room table as I write. There are more in the bedroom that I will bring in as the buds show signs of opening.

26 Jan, 2016

 

Thanks for explaining :)

28 Jan, 2016

 

thanks for explaining as I thought they were different species that you'd hybridised. like some of the native irises that have been crossed.

there are some lovely colour combos.

29 Jan, 2016

 

I'm noticing some differences between these Anglo-American hybrids & my older Amaryllis hybrids.

I've had 8 in flower up to the present moment but I have one more in bud on the living room table.

The very first to flower I realised after a couple of days had narrower petals than any of the older Amaryllis hybrids.

One is much taller than any of the others but whether this is a trait or lengthening due to lack of light I'll have to wait till next year to see when it flowers for a 2nd time. As all the Anglo-American hybrids that have flowered so far this year have all had the same conditions of light I'm more inclined to see it as a trait rather than due to low light levels.

All 9 Anglo-American hybrids have now been repotted - even though I would normally advise people not to repot until flowering is finished. I've been forced into repotting 7 out of 9 as they were too heavy for their pots & kept falling over. I wasn't able to put them in 6" pots last year as I had neither pots nor compost. Normally I like them to flower in 6" pots but they were in 5" pots. I've taken a photo of one plant that fell over repeated times last week & I found it impossible to keep it upright. I'll upload the photo to my pictures when I finish here.

1 Feb, 2016

Add a comment

Featured on

Recent posts by balcony

Members who like this blog

  • Gardening with friends since
    1 Feb, 2013

  • amy
    Amy

    Gardening with friends since
    17 Apr, 2008

  • Gardening with friends since
    17 Nov, 2014

  • Gardening with friends since
    1 Oct, 2013

  • Gardening with friends since
    28 Jan, 2014

  • Gardening with friends since
    9 Aug, 2009

  • Gardening with friends since
    2 Nov, 2009