Charisma selfed Amaryllis

Oops! I thought I posted the rest of the Charisma selfed blooms! There were five buds that came up and one bud aborted so a total of four of them came up this year. I posted about the first flower opening here; and these are the other three that followed suit.

May 13, 2015 - Charisma selfed #2

May 14, 2014 - Charisma selfed #3

May 15, 2014 - Charisma selfed #3 (other flower)

May 15, 2014 - Charisma selfed #4

And to answer a question!: "selfed" means that the original Charisma Amaryllis was selfed by its own pollen. Some seeds were given to me and I planted them in 2012. Five of them (even though the last one aborted its stalk) bloomed this year, which is pretty quick, I think!

Hybridizing Hippeastrums - Pink/White NOID x Red NOID

What do you get when you have a Pink White NOID mother and Red NOID father? I think ... ugly flowers?

Pink White NOID Mother

Red NOID Father

I had no idea who Pink White NOID Mother had crossed with in 2010 until last summer when late into the season a flower popped up, revealing that it was fathered by a Red NOID. It was unimpressive and the petals formed big gaps.

This late spring, seven flower stalks came up in the Pink White Mother/Red Father section of the amaryllis bed. I would like to take the opportunity to apologize for the horribly overgrown weedy appearance in the pictures. Mother Nature is laughing at me for putting a very big bed up against the fence where I can not access it from the other side to fend off the vines and weeds that are having a merry old time coming in. This bed is a loss and I'm going to be digging everything up and moving them elsewhere.

On with the pictures. And I apologize for the junk pictures as well. I was obsessing over taking pictures that I guess I didn't realize how many had turned out to be blurry or dark.

May 11, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #1

May 11, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #1

I have to admit that my reaction to the first flower opening was that it was ugly. I was disappointed. I was more impressed with the backs of the flowers. Why couldn't that design be on the petals?

May 12, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #2

This seems to be a repeat from last year except this one has five petals. The other flowers on this stalk had the same 'defect' and I didn't focus on this one much.

May 15, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #3

This one was pressed up against the fence. Lacked white. I really thought I went back to take pictures of the other flowers when it opened but it seems I totally overlooked this one.

May 16, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #4

May 17, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #4

#4 caught my attention. I really liked that a good amount of white was showing through in the flowers of this one. I also liked the little red marks in the throat as well.

May 20, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #5

May 20, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #5

The fifth was pretty much red. And then when one of the flowers opened later on, it revealed another 'gap' in the petal arrangement. Seems to 'run in the family'.

May 23, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #6

Another one with a bit of white in the picture.

May 26, 2014 - PinkWhite/Red #7

And the final one opens.

I won't be tossing these even though I'm unimpressed with a majority of them right now. PinkWhite NOID really hates setting pods and the fact that this is crossed, it's something different. Maybe next year I might get something more interesting from the other bulbs there.

I tried cross-pollinating PW/R#1, using Charisma selfed pollen on two flowers, and Intokazi pollen on two flowers. Charisma selfed failed. The two pods fathered by Intokazi are still there but not doing anything.

I tried PW pollen on PW/R#4. Then I took pollen from PW/R#4 and put it on PW. Ultimately my thought was that I wondered what would happen if PW/R#4 was pollinated by its mother, would the offspring bring forth more white? As for putting PW/R#4 pollen on PW, I just did that out of curiosity, to return the favor while going out there to cross flowers.

What I've noticed when I pollinated the PW/R flowers was that it shares the same 'personality trait' as the PW. It never seems to detect pollination. The flowers will stay open for days and act as if I didn't do a thing to it. And usually, when time tells, aborts all seed pods.

Iris changing colors, or where's Immortality Iris?

I think I finally understand now why some people are convinced their iris changes colors. There's a lot of rational explanations on why that happens, such as one color didn't bloom for a few years yet their rhizome was so aggressive that it's taken over the area before they decided to finally bloom, giving the illusion the iris had suddenly changed colors.

I purchased Cherub's Smile and last year it bloomed for the first time, revealing a white flower. I contacted the company and they identified this as Immortality Iris. I thought it was pretty cool because I didn't have a white iris.

A friend really liked it a lot that I promised I'd divide it for her. I separated it, sent her six rhizomes and then I re-potted all my iris.

Then it bloomed this year...

May 1, 2014 - Unidentified Light Purple Iris

I looked online to see if anyone shared this experience at all. All I could find were threads that talked about buying Cherub's Smile and just getting whites.

May 2, 2014 - Unidentified Light Purple Iris

May 12, 2014 - Unidentified Light Purple Iris

It seemed eager to set a couple of seed pods, at least. Both seed pods were pollinated by random 'Purple Mom/Black Dad' irises of mine. Then I noticed a second flower stalk was coming up. I thought this one would be my Immortality Iris for sure. Nope. The tip came out very dark purple.

May 14, 2014 - Unidentified Light Purple Iris

The second flower stalk's flower opens, revealing another light purple. I'm not sure where this came from. It certainly isn't one of mine. The only conclusion I can come to is that the bag came with one Immortality Iris rhizome and the other is this light purple.

There was one suggestion that maybe I accidentally misplaced some seeds from last year, when Immortality Iris was crossed with a 'Purple Mom/Black Dad' iris but nope, that's not it either. All my seeds were poured out into this pot and germinated this spring, starting their itty bitty lives for the first time!

May 15, 2014 - Iris Seedlings - Immortality/PMBD1

Oh, and my friend gave me an update. One rhizome is blooming and it's purple.

Red Blotch & Charisma Amaryllis (selfed)

Every few years something is going to come through your garden and wipe out the things you love, and there's nothing you can do but watch it happen.

The past few months, the red blotch (Stagonospora Curtisii) reared its ugly head and ravaged a lot of my cross-pollinated seedlings and bulbs. It was a very cool spring and I guess it just loved the conditions even though I was throwing Thiomyl on them at an alarming rate. Eventually I gave up and decided to let the blotch just devour everything. If there were any survivors, I'd just deal with them.

April 17, 2014 - Charisma x Selfed bud

Then one day I looked around and spotted a bud coming out of my 'Charisma x Selfed' bulb. Feeling somewhat renewed by this, I used up what little Thiomyl I had left on these bulbs to keep the blotch down to a minimum..

May 8, 2014 - First Charisma x Selfed flower opens.

May 8, 2014 - First Charisma x Selfed bloom.

May 8, 2014 - First Charisma x Selfed bloom.

I was really surprised they had buds already. Just two years! I planted the seeds in 2012 after receiving them from a generous member on Gardenweb's Amaryllis forum. I was also surprised that the flower pretty much looked like its parent. Still, I was pleasantly surprised.

After running out of Thiomyl, I purchased another fungicide called Immunox and it boasts that once dried, rain can't wash it off. I have to reapply it every two weeks. I have yet to have any rain since I sprayed the first time so I'm not quite sure how effective it is against the red blotch.

This has taught me one thing; It's not good to focus too much on one plant. Something can come through and wipe the whole collection out, and it's so disheartening.

But I guess that's what happens when you cross-pollinate plants just to see what they might look like one day.

Hippeastrum Intokazi, Mambo; Navel Orange seedling

Wow! I didn't think it'd been that long since I last posted!

12/16/13 - Hippeastrum Intokazi

I cross-pollinated the Intokazi flowers. All of the pods failed, unfortunately.

1/23/14 - Hippeastrum Mambo

The amaryllis above was sent to me in a kit labeled "Cinderella". I didn't think it was right so I posted it on the amaryllis forum and it was identified as Mambo.

2/10/14 - H. Mambo seed pods

I cross-pollinated all of the Mambo blooms except for two. The pollen on this plant was so messy that the two un-crossed flowers were selfed. All of the crossed pods had failed except for one(?). The two blooms that were inadvertently selfed had taken and swelled. The pod that was crossed(?) was crossed with Temptation. I guess I hesitate to say it was fathered by Temptation because every single crossed pod failed on both Intokazi and Mambo. Mambo's pollen was so messy that I don't know if this crossed pod was actually selfed or not. I'll be planting the seeds and I'll know the answer .. in about 5 years. Heh!

2/11/14 - Chrissy and Koda playing in the second snowfall

What amazed me is that we had a total of three separate snowfalls this year. Of all the years I've lived here, that has never happened before. I don't know what impact it has had on the plants here. I won't know until spring really kicks in. Weatherman is warning of at least one more frost next week.

3/20/14 - Navel Orange seedling germinating

Back on February 27th, I was eating a Navel Orange and was pretty surprised to find a seed in it. The experience was so bizarre that I decided to save the seed and do some research. I settled on the 'wet paper towel' method. Finally on March 20th, I see life!

3/20/14 - Navel Orange seedling setup

I cut a plastic water bottle in half, found some unused cocoa fibre, and used an old Reveal 60 watt bulb.

3/21/14 - Navel Orange seedling

Seems pretty happy after just one day of being moved!

Hot! More Hippeastrums, of course...

It's hot out there!

12/06/13 - Record high temperature!?

But as long as the wind blows, it's not so bad out there. Just wish it wasn't so muggy! So what have I been up to, garden-wise? Can't think of anything...

I am up to my old amaryllis/hippeastrum tricks again. Back on the 31st of October, someone shared this picture of H. Pixie from 'Living Gardens' on the amaryllis forum and I thought it was pretty cool. Of course the hybridizer in me wanted to buy one and see if I could cross it and try for unique flowers.

I placed an order for one Pixie and one Intokazi.

11/06/13 - Received the bulbs - Hippeastrum Intokazi and Hippeastrum Pixie

Unfortunately, shortly after receiving the bulbs, someone from Living Gardens contacted me to let me know that the supplier mislabeled the bulbs and that Pixie wouldn't be available until next year. They gave me a couple choices on what I wanted to do, and I decided to get a refund on the bulb and try for Pixie again when it becomes available. I thought it was pretty cool that they were honest about it and made sure I was satisfied. I'd certainly buy from them again.

12/06/13 - Amaryllis Intokazi

12/06/13 - Amaryllis "Pixie Bust"

Unfortunately my "Pixie Bust", which I've nicknamed it as a combo of 'pixie dust' and BUST, did not come with a flower scape ready to go. From what I can see on the amaryllis forum, it appears this bulb blooms white flowers. I'm waiting to see what everyone else's are like and hopefully they'll share their results. I won't know myself if it blooms next year or whatnot. I don't really have good luck with miniature amaryllis because my Green Dragon never bloomed again.

Intokazi is doing excellent so far. Can't wait to see the blooms open.

Canna Lily from Seed

I never really have any luck with canna lilies. Japanese beetles usually devour the plants to mere stalks and they continue to be a growing problem every year that there's just so many of them. I've tried to dig up rhizomes to get rid of this plant but it never works.

This year seems to be a different story. There were just a handful of Japanese beetles that came around.

August 14, 2013 - Canna Lilies

 They grew big and took over the entire bed, quickly crowding out the other plants growing in there.

August 14, 2013 - Canna Lily seed pods

 It was pretty weird seeing the spiky seed pods on top of the plants. It turns out that each part of the pod has one large black seed that can be harvested from it.

August 14, 2013 - Canna Lily seeds

 I did a search online to see how the seeds are usually handled. The most overwhelming response is to resort to 'scarification' in order to activate the seeds into germinating. I couldn't find anything on winter sowing them. I decided that since scarification is usually the method, I went and scratched the seeds on sandpaper until I saw the white tissue and I popped two seeds into a plastic cup of water for several days.

They say that taproots are supposed to start peeking out after a couple days but I didn't have that luck. I left the seeds in the water for about a week before I decided that it must've been too cold in the house for them. I got a small container and put the seeds in there, and set them outside in full sun.

August 30, 2013 - Canna Lily seedling

 Finally, on August 30th, the first seedling pops out.

September 2, 2013

 I was also quite amazed at how fast this seedling was taking off.

September 10, 2013 - Canna Lily seedlings

 Eventually the second seed surfaced and the leaves were full on red, which I thought was pretty cool.

September 27, 2013 - Canna Lily seedlings getting bigger

 Without disturbing the soil they were in, I decided to repot it in a bigger pot since the green canna lily was getting quite big. The red continued to stay rather small.

October 20, 2013 - Canna Lily seedlings

This is what it looks like today, with the green canna lily being quite happy. I might have to re-pot this into a bigger pot at some point. The red is still pretty small and it seems to be struggling.

This was a pretty interesting experiment. While I did collect a lot of seeds, I ultimately decided that I was just going to stick to these two because of the bad luck I usually have with the canna lilies.We must've had a freak year with the lack of japanese beetles or something but it'll be a lot easier to defend two seedlings to see what their flowers are like, instead of germinating a huge batch and doing a lot of fighting if/when they come back next year.

More Iris Seeds!

Like I needed more... Ha! ;)

Mother: Immortality Iris
Father: Purple Mom/Black Dad #1
Result: 39 seeds!

I'm really excited about this. I have to admit, I was nervous. I kept feeling the pod and it was giving so much that I thought I was experiencing an 'air pod', no seeds inside. Then heading out today, I saw that the top of the pod was peeling open - but there was a big ol' bug-chewed hole.

I was very relieved to see that there was no damage inside. There were 39 seeds inside. I can't wait to winter-sow them. Very excited. ;)

Pink/White Pods

This has been a strange year when it comes to the amaryllis.

May 10, 2013 - Pink/White Amaryllis

May 17, 2013 - Pink/White Amaryllis

June 11, 2013 - Pink/White Seed Pod

What stunned me this year is that there were a handful of seed pods swelling on the Pink/White. I have only ever been successful once in getting a seed pod to set and give me viable seeds. Every year, it's just failure after failure. It hates its own pollen and the pollen of others.

June 12, 2013 Pink/White Mother & Red Father Amaryllis

And in fact - This flower here was from the only seed pod I could get from the Pink/White years back. I labeled it as "PinkWhite Mom/Unknown Father". For some strange reason it decided to bloom this year, way after spring. When the flower opened, it revealed that the father was Red. It doesn't show anything exciting or new - which means that Red is an incredibly dominant color. I selfed the flowers because there were no other amaryllis flowers at this time of year - all three flowers died out with no seed pods. Does this mean it inherited its mother's dislike for pollen? Who knows.

June 25, 2013 - Amaryllis Seeds

All said and done, The Pink/White Amaryllis set not one.. not two.. but three seed pods with viable seeds. The insides were a mixture of black seeds and a bunch of chaff. I don't know *what* it was this year that got the Pink/White excited enough to set three seed pods but I gotta get these seeds in some dirt...

What an odd year!