On my other blog I've been posting little gardening tips and tricks and I originally posted this one there but I figured I'd post it here too for visitors who may be looking for information on propagating their Amaryllis bulbs. I started doing it last year and found it to be very easy to do and now have a few seedlings of crosses that I made. But if you only have one Amaryllis you can still propagate it because many will accept their own pollen. I do it one of two ways: After a couple of days the stigma will unfurl like you see in the image above. When it does it is ready to accept pollen from either the same flower or another Amaryllis you may have blooming at the same time. I'll either snip off the stem that holds the pollen and tap it onto the stigma or I'll collect some on the tip of a small artists' paint brush and brush it onto the stigma. Both methods have proven to be easy and effective for me.
You'll know if you were successful in pollinating your Amaryllis because the seed pod will swell like the pod on the left hand side. The one on the right looks sickly and flat and is starting to wrinkle. After a few weeks your seed pod will split open and inside you'll find relatively flat black seeds. Those you can pot up using either a ghetto greenhouse or by using the baggie method for seed starting.
One you've successfully germinated your seeds it will be 2-3 years until they are old enough to bloom and you'll see the fruits of your labor.
From my readings and experience Amaryllis Apple Blossom does not readily accept it's own pollen. You can propagate this Amaryllis if you provide pollen from a different bulb and you can use the pollen from an Apple Blossom to pollinate another bulb.
If your bulb is unhealthy or you are trying to encourage it to grow do not attempt to reproduce it this way because it will spend most of it's energy on producing seeds and it will weaken your bulb. Once your Amaryllis bulb has finished flowering you should start fertilizing on a regular schedule and encourage leaf growth until next season.
You can see more photos of my Amaryllis flowers if you use the search box on the side that searches my three blogs.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Amaryllis Pollination
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3 comments:
You got me excited in trying to do this myself. I don't have many amarylis at all or if they'll even bloom.
I do have quite a bit of lilies that bloom. I wonder if it's easy to pollinate them too.
But what I worry about is that once I get the seeds, what if I do a terrible job in growing them? At least I figured out that the hibiscus seeds have to be planted as soon as the pods open because they just don't last long at all. I planted many seeds two years ago but only two appeared to be viable and grew.
Hey DS,
Yeah they're easy to do too. And with a little bit of attention should be easy to get started. You just have to figure out what the seeds need.
BTW you can store pollen from Amaryllis bulbs similar to how you store pollen from DayLilies. So if you have plants that aren't blooming at the same time then you can always cross pollinate.
I just wanted to tell you that your pictures are outstanding!
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