Amaryllis - Seed propagation
 

I have been interested in seed propagation for a while now. My first and only attempt with phal stems failed and I gave up and sent a zygo seed pod to a lab ( hoping that there will be germination, still waiting to hear ).
However I have had success with amaryllis. I suppose I chose them because it also takes about 2-3 years to reach maturity from seed !
About 3 months back I selfed a pink amaryllis and seeds developed. I floated these in water, after reading up on the internet, and these germinated - I would say roughly 70%. After a single leaf developed I potted 3 up together in a 3in pot. Well today they are mostly doing well. Some were eaten by a baby possum, as they have been outdoors for 3 weeks ! The bulbs are developing, about the size of a pinkie nail. I am very curious to see how these turn out !
I will post photos a bit later...when I get my tapatalk phone.

Very cool!

About 3 years ago a member cross pollinated all her amaryllis and sent seedlings to several people (including myself) - I still have all but one she sent me, no blooms yet, but glad to know they are maybe now big enough to bloom ;)

looking forward to your pix!

this is awesome! im starting to dabble in hippeastrum, amaryllis, and even some clivias! breeding them would be awesome! and hopefully not as complicated as most orchids! lol

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I'm not sure how to grow these on in terms of a winter rest, but I am having on the job training !

I do not think they need a winter rest. I have an hyppeastrum, it blooms in the winter and the summer and I treat as a regular plant.

looks great!!!

i dont know about seedlings, but i thought that hippeastrum/amaryllis do need a winter rest. in november, i just stop watering mine, after a month, or whenever i feel like it, i start watering again. they faithfully send up blooms and then leaves shortly after.

I think they can also grow all year round. water them less in the winter.

interesting! do they still bloom well without a rest? im lazy, so not watering in the winter is good for me :P

I tried a couple of crosses several years ago. I kept them growing year round till they bloomed, kept the few that were really nice, and then started the winter rest thing. Nowadays they go outside as soon as the weather settles down, this year early May. For me, they have become outdoor spring and summer bloomers, which I don't mind at all.

Kim

Great pictures and very impressive.

update...

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Nice!

nice - i have been interested in getting some more amaryllis - didn't know their real name for a while - i was told they were called naked ladies when i first saw them. ours were an annual grower, going dormant in the winter.

Bulbs the size of a quarter .....I won't allow to go dormant, see what happens
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these REALLY need to go outside - when temps above 50f.....I started fertilising them more regularly and they just took off.
No space !

3rd photo is mommy - Apple Blossom. This year there were 2 stems, one had 6 flowers !

Awesome!

A couple of the Amaryllis I have been growing since they were tiny seedlings have scapes! I'm anxious to see what they will look like.

Mine grow outside year round, down to low 30s for short periods at night in winter.

hmm...I think I might just plant a couple out later this week.

Seed propagation process is much much easier with Amaryllis than orchids. Many Amaryllis readily develop seeds and in much shorter time than how long many orchids take to mature seed pods.
but I thought it takes 5-7 years from seed to flowering size bulb. at least for large flowering hippeastrum hybrids.

This is not really related to the article, but you have possum in your area? I thought possums are only found in Australia and its neighboring islands?

Regarding winter rest, it is not necessary. It is mainly done to "force" them so the flowers are ready around Christmas, which is a big sale season for Amaryllis.
They grow ever green when conditions are favorable to their growths. This way, they usually bloom around Spring time. Some flower twice a year.

To help the bulb grow the best, you want to give them full sun all day. The light makes a huge difference.

I hope you get to see some nice blooms.

yep, we have a momma possum that is a regular visitor.
The one Xmas we brought back all types of shells from the beach and I left them outside on a table in a bag. The resident possum scrounged them out and it was quite funny to see it working through all the shells with its snout - in the middle of a snowstorm. They are omnivores, basically eat anything. And the saying "playing possum" is true. Although they look like giant rats, if you have the nerve to nudge them, they roll over and play dead. Personally they give me the heebie-jeebies.....

How interesting!

They must have a strong stomach as Amaryllis bulbs should taste pretty bad because of its chemical content.

Narcissuss and Amaryllis bulbs are good examples of rodent and deer safe garden plants.

I guess even these bulbs have their enemies. lol

Re the resting question, most Hippeastrums do have some kind of dormancy but as with many orchids it may be just a period of inactivity rather than actually losing their leaves (the bulbs sold commercially are usually defoliated and forced into dormancy). Generally with seedlings amaryllid growers try to keep them actively growing as long as possible, since that reduces the time to flowering. If they stop putting on new leaves, then reduce water and fertilizer somewhat until they start again, but otherwise let them grow if they will.

(Back before we kept all of our cats indoors, we'd come home sometimes to see a possum or two eating dry cat food side by side with them. Strangely the cats didn't seem to mind.)

Steve

yep, we have cats that are allowed outdoors. We learned quickly not to leave anything remotely edible overnight, not even on a table or higher up off the ground. We don't have raccoons, but we did have skunks ( which stink up the place just by being around ). I haven't smelled a skunk around for years.....
I have never had an amaryllis bulb eaten, just the leaves.

Opossums are prevelant throughout the country. They ARE marsupials - the only marsupial species native to the US

oh, I didn't know there were here in the US.

Yep... We have opossoms here... A couple that come thru my yard are so big they set off my motion detector lights... They have to weight over 20 pounds (they waddle like ducks... Really fat ducks Lol :rofl:) they are HUGE!! ...I keep my cats inside at night... My not-so-small cats are dwarfed by them! :shock:

EDIT: and, no, I don't feed them... But someone in this neighborhood has too.. I mean they r huge, I don't think they did that by themselves!

update.........these seedlings are about 18 months old, so about another 1yr-18months to go before flowering.
I am going to have to dig them up this next weekend. Already foliage has been damaged by frost.
I found on another blog that seedlings can be allowed to go dormant, I am going to have to do trigger that as I just don't have the space !!!

they are in there somewhere, my raised veggie bed that is now predominantly amarylis.......

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also home to basil, parsley, snapdragons, spring onions and tomatoes !

---------- Post added at 03:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 PM ----------

and this is momma ( notice a couple of offsets ), looking a bit worse for wear - but preparing for a winter rest of about 8 weeks

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Amaryllis - Seed propagation
 

Merkity: You may be thinking of Lycoris radiata. They are also a member of the amaryllis family. I live near the Texas Gulf Coast so practically anything in the amaryllis family does well here left outside all year. The Lycoris bloom in August and September without foliage, therefore the name 'naked ladies'. After blooming, the foliage comes up and lives through the winter. When warm weather comes, the foliage dies down and then the cycle repeats.
The plants under discussion are hippeastrum, commonly known as Amaryllis. Amaryllis bulbs get huge like a softball whereas Lycoris bulbs are considerably smaller. All the family wants to be planted with the top at or near the surface of the ground. They generally are not hardy in very cold areas. Other members of the family are rain lilies and zephranthes.
Beverly A.

lifted all of them today......don't seem to have lost any, and a few have offsets growing ! The mother only produced an offset this year - after 3 years.
Any advice on storage or growing on ?

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I let them go dormant. Unless you grow them in a greenhouse or under lights, they won't build energy during the winter. I have a couple potted up but I will let the leaves die back, dry out, bag them, and put them in a corner somewhere. I do have some in the pots of other plants and they never do as well as the ones that sleep for the winter...the dormant ones bloom, these never do. I hope that helps.

well the bulbs in storage appear to be doing ok so far, lets hope that continues.

The parent is blooming again - var apple blossom


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