Amaryllis seedlings

well worth the wait. there are some stunning ones here. well done that man:o)

They are fabulous Balcony, you must have the patience of Joab........

This is wonderful,what a great display.Patience is rewarding :-)

What a wonderful display ! Pity you didn't have a pure white but they are all stunning, especially the 2-tone ones. I've enjoyed seeing them :o)

What a labour of love. Thanks for sharing them with us. I only wish I had your patience.

Wonderful pics - they always remind me of christmas as mum always brought me one for christmas!!

they were well worth waiting for they are Beautiful..........

Many thanks to you all for your lovely comments :-)

I agree Holly, they were worth waiting for!

You needn't have them only at Christmas, Genuisscuffy, you can have them at other times of the year as well.

As for patience, Sussexsarah, Columbine & Seaburngirl, I knew when I sowed my seeds that they would take between 3 & 5 years before I saw any flowers. Last year I was a little impatience hoping that one or two of the biggest bulbs would throw up a stem, but no luck. I've had to wait for this year to see almost all the 50 bulbs produce flowers.

Hywel, I, too, like the two tone ones very much as well! :-) They have become my favourites as each plant is a little different from the others, though perhaps you need to see them together to appreciate the differences.

Having said that the pure reds are also slightly different one from another although in their case the differences are even less noticeable.

Today a new flower is opening on a different bulb & I was hoping it was going to be white but it isn't. :-( It has less red flushing in it than any to now it seems, the 1st flower is less than 1/2 open at present. In a day or two I'll post a picture of it.

Was one of the parent plants white ?
If so maybe the pure white form will skip a generation, and appear if you sew seeds from these ( another few years lol )

Fantastic, Balcony! Well done for all your patience and care.

Thanks Nariz, so pleased you liked it! I'm taking photos every day! I can hardly keep my eyes of them!

Yes, Hywel, one of the parents was pure white but there's no sign of any white (without any red) at the moment. I don't have many left to flower either. ;-(

I've just uploaded the whitest to appear up till now. But even that one has some red feathering in the petals.

Very often you find certain characteriatics will skip a generation. Maybe you need to cross another two and wait a few more years to see what happens.

As the pure white has flowered this year yet I can't get any seeds from it! Will have to wait to see if it flowers during the summer.

Amazzzzzzzzing.
Well done.Thank for sharing.
I can't get mine to reflower.
do they rebloom every yr after the first yr. they bloom?

My original red one, which I bought 8 years ago, has flowered every single year since then! Some years it has even flowered twice! I live in the UK with its unpredictable summers! The last 2 were terrible.

I see you are in California, Angie. In that case I don't see why you should have any problems in getting them to flower year after year. Your climate is probably similar to that of Spain. I grew Amaryllis over there for nearly 20 years!

When your bulb finishes flowering keep the leaves growing by watering regularly & giving the plant some rose or tomato fertilizer, diluted according to the instructions on the bottle. Also try to find a sunny spot for it, these bulbs do best if they can get a lot of sun during the summer.

Later in the year when you see the leaves beginning to turn yellow, stop all watering & let the leaves die back. They will need a few weeks of cold, but NOT freezing, temps. You can either leave them to grow in their pots all summer or plant them in the ground but make sure half the bulb is above ground level otherwise they will rot!

wow brilliant, you have so many there

On the BeyondSpace forum I've made up several pages with thumbnail photos of many of the photos I've taken over the last few weeks while my seedling Amaryllis have been in flower.

Just copy the following address into your browser address bar to see BIG photos of these lovely flowers.

http://beyondspace.info/forum/index.php?topic=840.msg11748#msg11748

Wow, i absolutely love your Hippeastrums!! Thanks for sharing your blog..i really enjoyed reading it...I am on the way to beyondspace now to check out your other photos.
Sandra :)

Sandra, have you see the ones that are flowering in the greenhouse on the allotment? I posted them to my photos on here. I haven't got around to adding any more to my pages on Amaryllis as yet but after your reminder I'm going to have to do it!

I'm simply overwhelmed! So glad, I chanced upon this site. I've got a lot of em too but they're always green and flower rarely. It's always sunny and humid here in Malaysia.

What would your advice be for getting them to reward me some flowers every now and then? I've got the same brick red ones and yes, that pure white of yours.

I'm pleased you like these Amaryllis of mine! :-)) I also hope you will enjoy your visits to GoY & that you will tell us more about what you grow. I know a Malaysian lady here & another one who used to live very close to us.

As for advice well I don't think I can say more than what I've said earlier. As you get lots of sun these bulbs will like that as well as the warmth of your climate but ... they will not like the humidity! They originate in hot, dry counties where the summers are hot & dry & the winters are cold & dry. Here in the UK they grow best indoors but don't mind our summers even though they are not hot & dry like the countries they come from originally. While they are protected from lots of rain & from frost in the winter, (a problem I expect you don't have to cope with!), they should be alright. Just try to feed them with a rose or tomato fertilizer if you can get some. Try to give them protection from rain, as I said they like hot & DRY conditions. They will do better if they get lots of sun though.

I hope you can understand all this! I mean the instructions/advice, not the language! :-)) I hope you will tell me how you get on with them & if they flower again for you. All the plants you saw in this blog have flowered again this year. Some that didn't flower in April/May are flowering now!

balcony, i have questions about amaryllis. i just bought a red lion amaryllis. when it flowers since its the only one i have if i sellf pollinate it will it still produce viable seed for me to plant and grow new seedlings from? and if so all the seedlings will probably flower at their first flowering as all reds eh?. also ive read everywhere u can keep the amaryllis growing as an evergreen plant without giving it a traditional rest period-in their native habitat they flower in june ish, and us as people like to FORCE them to flower at times that are conveniant for us to WANT flowers-christmas time mainly which isnt normal for them to flower then naturally. i only have north windows in my apartment-never direct sun :( gotta love places with north windows...not!. so im thinking of just growing mine full time under flourescent light. that way it will think its in full sun and that way it will grow the way it should for me. i used to grow amaryllis before, i used to have a place with a west window, hot afternoon sun-they did well, i wud put them in the sun on the deck all summer after the last frost at the beginning of june and take them in before the first frost around mid sept, they were still all green and never went dormant so i threw them out thinking they were no good lol. well now that ive read u can grow them all year in green growth without an unnatural dormant period just in winter cut back a bit on watering but water enough so theyre still green and slowly growing all year every year they will revert back to their "wild" roots and flower at normal time for them in the wild-around june! and how cool is it to have amaryllis in full bloom in june! noone else sees that and wud be so jealous!! ill keep u posted. let me know the answers to my above question about self pollination. thanks

Sorry I hadn't seen your post till today! :-( I'm afraid I can't help you much on the self fertilizing topic as mine were cross-pollinated. Though having said that they will set seed if self-pollinated as to whether they will be viable I have no idea. I've accidentally self-pollinated a few of my plants over the years but I've never let them reach maturity as I wasn't interested in getting more seeds. I'd rather they conserve their energy for making flowers for the coming season!

I don't force my plants to flower at unnatural times. But the last 2 years I have withheld water from September till January when I've noticed buds are growing. That's when I begin to water them again. I had flowers from one plant or another practically every month last year! I discovered a couple of plants forming buds last September so I brought them home from the allotment where they spend 6 months in the open. Since then I haven't gone a week without one plant or another in flower. In fact at the present moment I have 5 different bulbs in flower in our living room!

Beautiful flowers ~ your patience and hard work is justly rewarded ~ Im a bit worried about where you can eat your tea though ~ the kitchen table looks full up!

The table full of bulbs is actually in our living room but we rarely use it to eat on unless we have guests. The photos were taken a few years ago now, you should be able to see the dates on the actual photos.

They were also taken the first year all the seedlings flowered for the 1st time, which is why there are so many!

They are beautiful Balcony, well done you!

Thank you very much, Michaella.:-)) Glad you like them! Do you have any of your own?

Must have been a very pleasing and amazing sight to see all those seedlings flowering.

I was ever so happy! Many of the bulbs also put up 2 flowering stems & a couple even managed 3!!! Incredible for plants that were flowering for the very first time! They far exceeded my expectations! :-)) See the last photo above where I'm standing beside our table filled with them in the living room. I put it down to growing them in a growbag for tomatoes their 3rd year! It was the most sensible thing to do at the time as it enabled me to have them all growing on my balcony but in very little space. See the 2nd photo in this blog. The growbags were also very cheap but the bulbs grew very well in them!

Those grow bags are very useful for all sorts of things, now to find a sunny place to put them!!!!!!!!!

Just be careful not to overwater the bags!

ah yes ~ that can be a problem, i will watch!