Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum) Seed Pods and Seeds

This has been an interesting journey. I finally had two desert roses blooming at the same time so I decided to look up on how to cross-pollinate them. I came across this really interesting post someone made on how to cross pollinate them. The pictures are extremely helpful; it showed me where I could find the pollen and how to do it correctly. Though they weren't kidding when they talked about it being difficult to see at certain points even when you tear the flower apart and get everything set up for a crossing. I did this on only a handful of flowers.

June 22, 2016 - Desert Roses

June 30, 2016 - Desert Roses

July 7th, 2016 - Appears to be a successful cross!

Somewhere around the 4th, 5th of July, I noticed these two little nubs seeming to stay around a while, while the others would dry up. I didn't want to get excited but eventually it seemed like these two were the only ones that were growing in size!

July 10, 2016 - More growth!

By now it became obvious that I did succeed on just one flower. I made several more attempts after but this would be the only one to succeed. I was prepared for the possibility that nothing would take because of the article stating success rates would be very, very low. So this was exciting!

July 28th, 2016 - Seed Pods growing bigger!

August 6, 2016 - Huge pods!

August 28, 2016 - Seems to have maxed out!

It was incredible to watch this explode in size, especially on such a small plant! The pods were so heavy that I was worried the branch would snap under the weight of it. At first I twined the branches together for more support, and eventually propped the seed pods up against the branches of my larger Desert Rose for more support. And then pretty much left it alone since.

October 10, 2016 - Adenium Obesum seed pods opening

October 10, 2016 - Close up of seed pod opening

It was pretty neat to finally reach the day when the pods started opening and little fuzz balls started popping out.

A seed with the ends puffed out!

I was curious to know how many seeds each pod had so after I prepared the seeds, I counted them. A total of 163 seeds were there, with 48 of them not appearing to be good (they were shriveled up and I felt no lump in them).

I'm thinking next spring I gotta put more effort into seeing if I can get my bigger one to be the mother next time.

UPDATE July 27, 2018: Desert Rose (adenium) seedlings growth

Crossed Tall Bearded Iris

I thought I blogged about this before but I guess not. I wrote the flower off as 'dead and gone' when it bloomed. But anyhow....

In 2013, I crossed an Immortality Iris with a "Purple Mom/Black Dad" Iris, and I was successful. I got a seed pod, I winter-sowed them and posted a picture of them growing the next spring/early summer. 

During Spring 2015, quite a few flowers came up. 

I started documenting the flowers coming up...



...and all of them were purple...



What's this?!



It was the only "white" one to come up and I was completely obsessed with it. Unfortunately around this time, I caught something bad. All I remember is that there were a lot of pollen flying around and then all of a sudden I had a fever, a lot of sweating, and after a week of that, a cough moved in and then went deep into my lungs. That was a nightmare that lasted for way too long. I even went out with a paint pen and scribbled on the leaves so that when I got better, I'd be able to find it and separate it.

By the time I got better, all the original leaves in the pot had died down and gave way to new leaves. I had no idea which one I wanted to dig up, and pretty much wrote the flower off as dead and gone.

Then cue 2016. For some reason the garden did not bloom much this year. I had very few amaryllis blooms, as well as a handful of iris blooms scattered around. I don't know if it was because winter wasn't cold enough? I don't know.

Then to my complete and utter surprise...



Only one iris bloomed in this pot and it was the one that I thought was long gone.



I was absolutely determined to separate it this time while I still can. After the flowers ran their course and shriveled up, I got it repotted in a pot all by itself.



There were two teeny, tiny rhizomes attached to it so I'm hoping it'll eventually take over the whole pot with a bunch of new rhizomes to carry on the legacy.

Crossed hippeastrum blooms

Sorry about the watermarks. Ever since Houzz took over Gardenweb, they seem to have disabled html so you have to upload images there. Made me a bit nervous so I started watermarking all my images I upload there just to be on the safe side.

The crosses below came from one member who sent me seeds years ago and it was pretty neat to see them finally bloom this spring.

The parents "Ebay 1" and "Ebay 2" were shared on the thread where I posted the pictures: Crossed amaryllis blooming: Thread on Amaryllis/Hippeastrum It's further down the thread, posted by dondeldux. It appears to have taken after the mother rather than the father.

The above two pictures of Exotica x Mocca are of the same bulb. It sent up two scapes, four flowers each. I really liked the coloring of this one.

I'm not sure I like this one. It seems bland but it is something new.

 A couple of the Charisma x Selfed are blooming for the second year but this bulb is blooming for the first time and it's interesting that a lot of the speckling and dark red is gone. I really like the simpleness of this flower.

A new year and new flowers....

I think I sort of understand now why some gardening blogs tend to stop abruptly. Sure there's the usual stuff such as life changes, getting busy, new things going on. But after a couple years when you find yourself posting the same plants over and over, it starts to feel like you're not really posting anything new. I guess that's why I got into cross-pollinating plants, to hope for something unique but even that can take years, if ever.

Green Dragon Amaryllis - April 20, 2015

 I was surprised to see that two of the bulbs had bloomed this year. I didn't think I'd ever see them flower again after the initial one that came up when I bought it.

Papilio amaryllis cross (?unknown) - April 20, 2015

The Papilio seeds I planted, one surprisingly sent up a maiden bloom and had a little snafu. It was really bizarre but it's doing its best in blooming at the neck of the bulb. The red lines go to the edge of the petals and the stigma has freckles on it, so I'm guessing it was crossed with something but I am glad it has Papilio in it. I'd love to see it bloom normally next year with several flowers.

Growing Canna Lily Seeds

Last year my Canna Lily grew very big and I collected seeds. I guess the japanese beetles just weren't around that year. I grew two of the seeds out of curiosity to see what it was like. The little red one died during winter but the green one returned in spring. I put it in the ground to give it more space to grow. I'm hoping it'll bloom this year so that I can see if it takes the same color as the parent or not.

Then I found the plastic baggy full of Canna Lily seeds. I figured that because the canna lilies in the backyard are doing wonderful again this year, that maybe...  I decided at the spur of the moment that it'd be fun to try to grow all of the seeds!

May 27, 2014 - Used a toenail clipper to nick each seed

The first step is to nick each seed until you reveal a tiny bit of white. So I had to dig up a toenail clipper to work on each seed. It was a pain in the butt but I managed to get all of them.

Then, the interesting thing is, several people mentioned that they pour hot water on their canna lily seeds and they enjoy the 'popping, cracking' sounds the seeds make in the water. I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to do that but they swore by it. I put all the seeds in a bowl, boiled some water, and when the bubbles stopped coming up, I poured that hot water over my seeds. I didn't hear any popping, cracking, etc.

May 27, 2014 - After an hour of soaking

May 28, 2014 - A day later

May 29, 2014 - Planted the seeds

50 seeds were then planted in a greenhouse kit. The remaining seeds were put in an old seed kit. So then the waiting game (I was wondering if I might have boiled my seeds to death.).

June 5, 2014 - Canna Lily seedlings popping up

A lot of seeds starting germinating. Pretty excited about that.

June 6, 2014 - Canna Lily seedlings

June 7, 2014 - Canna Lily seedlings

I was surprised at how fast they were coming up and out. I'll admit I didn't look this far ahead into my plans so I didn't really have anything to put them in. I was also worried their roots would start growing into each other. They got a tad bigger so I got some big pots and lots of dirt....

June 12, 2014 - Canna Lily seedlings

I moved over 30 seedlings, 5 for each pot. They'll probably just grow in there for a bit until I figure out where to plant them.

The funny thing is that as soon as I started growing the seeds, the japanese beetles have shown up in great numbers. I got one of those traps out there that's supposed to lure them over and it seems to be working so far. So we'll see if the canna lilies can survive this or if they'll go back to being chewed down before they have a chance to bloom again.

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.