OK, so that subject may be a bit over the top, clickbait. But I am a bit excited, and that too needs to be tempered because the fruits of this experiment could be as far as five years away.
What am I talking about? Earlier I posted that we had great success with our two amaryllis bulbs, one with four huge blooms and the other rewarding us with two stalks sporting four blossoms on one and three on the second! They were a delightful sight in our dining room in April. Since both varieties were blooming simultaneously I spontaneously (sorry, couldn’t resist) dabbed some pollen from each onto a bloom from the other. (I knew some species of flowers can’t self-pollinate so hadn’t tried this in previous years when we only had one bulb flowering at a time, but I’ve since learned that amaryllis can self-pollinate.) Voila! Seed pods began to develop and dried up about a month later, yielding 50 or so seeds in each pod.
After drying them for a few days I sowed about 20 in two small trays (good use for recycled Chinese food dishes I’d say). It has taken four weeks but at least 8 have sprouted:
Amaryllis seedlings
The biggest one is only about half an inch tall but they’re starting to accelerate their growth a bit.
Gardening Know How gives some basic tips on growing these and if things progress well I’ll likely need to dig up some additional details, but the basics sound fairly straightforward: plenty of sun, moist soil but well drained (I put quite a bit of sand in the mix I’m starting these in), and fertilize periodically.
If all of these mature – a big if, and something that will take at least three years and perhaps as many as five – maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a pleasing hybrid between the pink and the red of the parents.
Stay tuned with an update around, oh, some time in 2022?