To ATP Henry! Beautiful blooms, your seedlings are gorgeous!!

Although it took many years to see the results, but if you do it every years during the long winter, you will get many big surprises each year .

Wow, Henry, that is quite a collection you have there.

Henry, Nice job. I would love to have one with extra yellow strips in it. I see you got one coming along. I haven't had good luck with the finial product but I could grow from seeds ok. Please keep me in mind. Stush

Wow! Henry I'd love to do some hybridizing with mine, you have some great ones there. If I can only get it to bloom again would be a big step! Had it 11 years now and it only bloomed once!

Wow! @bearsearch Brian, you are a real die hard for sure to keep a plant that long when it bloomed only once, please read my article that I just had published this week, I feel strongly that it will help get that plant to bloom.
http://garden.org/ideas/view/m...

Thanks for the link to your article Margaret. I've been doing that with most of my other varieties and have generally had blooms on them yearly. This particular one is quite different though. They do not like to dry out or be disturbed. When I bought it it was like every other hippeastrum at the garden centre, dry and leafless. It took a whole year sitting in the pot before I got one single leaf from it. It sat there, the bulb was firm and I could see through the holes in the pot it was rooting but not any top growth for at least a year. Since then it has grown many new bulbs, it fills the 10 inch pot, and lots of leaves but has only flowered once. I keep it because the leaves themselves are attractive and it's a challenge! I'm going to get it to bloom again if it's the last thing I do!

That is frustrating Brian, it must be missing something to cause it not to bloom at least every other year. Maybe Henry will have some suggestions, his seem to bloom on a regular basis. I really like them, think I will see if I can find one this fall.

@bearsearch
Try more light
???

Long time to get back to this thread but here I am.
In the meantime I lost my original plant, obtained another, had it bloom this fall and even managed to get some seed. I hope it was actually crossed with the pollen I applied and not accidentally self pollinated. I used Chico as the pollen parent. I have 5 seeds that are very different from any other hippeastrum seeds I have ever had. These are much like daylily seeds! I hope they are as easy to germinate and grow as daylilies! HenryKoitsiWang, any suggestions?

Hi Brian, haven't been here for quite awhile myself, all my plants got some sort of disease and I had to throw them out and haven't bothered getting new ones. We put UV film on the windows and the plants didn't thrive anymore. Good luck with your seed cross, I wish you success and it's what you are hoping for.

Hi Margaret: It is so good to see your posting. I had wondered why you had gone "silent" for so long. So sorry to hear that your bulbs had to be discarded. Henry, I never had luck obtaining H. reticulatum varieties. They have such interesting foliage. There are only a few photos in the Plant Database, so it was great to see your pictures.

I've always had good luck with seeds when I pre-soaked them in warm water with Rootone powder over night before setting them in their mix. Used those plastic take out containers which has a clear top cover. Used as a mini green house. I too lost my collection due to some sort of fungus that spread thru all my hippeastrum and clivia plants. Started over with clivia only. Will never buy any cheap hippeastrum on sale again.

Hi Barbara and Stush.

Stush, sorry that you lost your Hippeastrum and Clivia plants too, very disappointing when you have had them for several years to see them all get sick like that. Good luck on your new Clivia plants.

Thanks. When I crossed different hippeastrum, I only got small red flowers and plants were smaller growing. Didn't get first bloom until the third year growing them. With my current Clivia plant (Yellow Dragon), it is over 5 years old and still haven't bloomed. My old common orange one bloomed every year with no special treatment. My yellow one, I hold back watering and let it rest in a cool basement window thru the winter season while out side in partial shade thru the summer. It is growing large but still no blooms.

Stush, I'm sure that must be very disappointing for you, hope this is the year that it blooms.