Amaryllis, “Red”, has begun showing its 1st bud!

Amaryllis, “Red”, has begun showing its 1st bud!

One of my Amaryllis,“Red”,has begun showing its 1st bud! It’s an offshoot of the mother bulb that I haven’t removed from its pot yet. I was cutting off the remaining leaves of all the bulbs that line our bedrooms & kitchen windowsills when I discovered it.

1st Amaryllis bud of 2014 in our bedroom window:

Another photo of the 1st bud of 2014 in our bedroom window:

I have about 50 pots with Amaryllis bulbs that I’ve grown to flowering from my own saved seeds. Most of them are in 15cm/6inch pots. Most of them have several offshoots growing in the pots as well, still attached to their mothers. I wanted to remove them from their pots & pot them all up individually this year, to that end I watered them all for the very last time on the last day of August 2013 then I moved them into the greenhouse on the allotment. All the pots of Amaryllis spend 6 months of the year on the allotment & the other 6 months of the year on the windowsills of our flat.

First Amaryllis bulbs brought back home:

As I have a label in the pot I know it will be red. It’s one of my seedlings that began to flower about 5 years ago. It doesn’t have a name but only goes by its colour. All the plants you see in the pots in the photos were grown from seeds I saved 8-9 years ago when the original 3 Amaryllis that I bought in the autumn of 2001 flowered for the last time.

Amaryllis stacked in tiers in our bedrooms windows viewed from the outside:

Last of Amaryllis bulbs brought back home from their summer on the allotment:

I originally bought a pure white, a pure red & a red with white stripes from a stall at the first international market week we had here back in 2001, (now an annual event), but they were loose unmarked bulbs, apart from the colour of course.

Amaryllis: The original 3 colours flowering in 2007:

They had no names. They flowered the 1st & 2nd years with me but the 3rd year the white one grew but didn’t flower. The other 2 did flower. The following year the white one bloomed for the last time. All three bulbs were living in the same plot for at least 5-6 years. I found a photo of them in the same pot in 2008 with offshoots.

Amaryllis: the Red one with a White stripe where you can see seedpods behind the flower:

I cross pollinated the flowers & ended up with so many seeds I didn’t know what to do with them, but that was back in 2007. I sowed the seed that same summer & was embarrassed with the number that germinated!

I’m going to add one photo from each year showing the progress of these seedlings to flowering plants:

Amaryllis seedlings growing in a seedtray on the balcony in July 2007:

Amaryllis seedlings in 2008:

Amaryllis seedlings growing on balcony in 2008:

Amaryllis seedlings on kitchen windowsill in 2009:

The year the seedlings from these 3 plants flowered for the 1st time was in 2010:

Amaryllis seedlings in May 2010:

Amaryllis on living room table in January 2012:

Amaryllis on our table in the living room in March 2013:

Now they need transplanting as I’m only getting 2 flowers from many of the bulbs instead of at least four. It is not very noticeable as I’ve got at least 50 pots at present. They now flower at different times so I get a continuous succession of flowers! In 2012 for example I hardly had a month without at least one flower!

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) Anglo-American Hybrid seeds

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) Anglo-American Hybrid seeds

This is about the Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) Anglo-American hybrid seeds created from the pollen that a lady from America ,who posts on another of the gardening forums I also post on, sent me from her Hippeastrum Sydney on 1st March 2012.

I used some of the pollen to fertilize one of my Red with White Stripes Amaryllis that was open at that time & looked as if it were ready to receive pollen. I must have been right because one seedpod formed & I harvested the seed on Monday 16th April 2012.

History of Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) Anglo-American Hybrid seeds in pictures:

Here then are some photos of these seeds with the original mother bulb & the original plastic bag of pollen from her Amaryllis Sydney:

As a reminder I tied the little bag of pollen from Sydney on the stem of the flower/s I’d pollinated with it:

Original bag of pollen of H.Sydney:

The flower on the right is the Amaryllis that was fertilized with the pollen from H.Sydney.

3 Photos of Mother plant in kitchen window showing seedpod:

Seedpod of Amaryllis cross fertilized with pollen from H.Sydney seen from outside of kitchen window:

Seedpod with seeds still inside:

Split seedpod with seeds visible & little bag of pollen from H.Sydney:

Seeds emptied from seedpod:

I expect that some sharp-eyed person will have spotted that I wrote the pollen parent’s name wrong! I should have written “Sydney” but at the time of writing the label & on the pot I spelt it wrong! I could have corrected it before taking the photos but I didn’t notice till afterwards & I could no longer delete them & replace them with the word corrected.

Both of us will grow a few of the seeds but they take 4 years to grow into bulbs big enough to flower! So a lot of patience is required!