My Backyard Garden

If you are wondering what those bottles are beside the tomato plants are, they are water spikes with 2 liter bottles on top of them. I am trying an experiment this year. I placed water spikes beside the plants as I put them in the ground this year. I am hoping that I won't spend half the day watering the plants like I did last year. I am suspecting that we may have a HOT HOT summer. Last year I did it with my butterfly bushes that I started from seeds and they survived and grew very well. This year I planted tomatoes and bell peppers. The bell peppers are from a carnival mix so I have no idea what color they are going to be. We are going to have some cold weather tonight so I hope that the plants will survive the cold. It is suppose to get in the low 30's. I am going to cover the plants and pray that the cold does not kill them.

Also today I potted quite a few amaryllis plants. I think it was a total 24 or more. The thing is I have another 30 sprouts and another 4 seed pods that are ready to pop open and day. The seed pods can have as many as 75 seeds or possibly more.

A New Year, a new diary

Stating now I am going to start making a garden diary. It is something I have wanted to do in the past but never got around to. Well this is a new year and I figured it's a great way to start the new year.

Entry 1
Back in November 2010 for my birthday I received several Amaryllis bulbs. Absolutely none of them bloomed. They all sprouted leaves but no bud. To be honest I was disappointed. Well this year they are more than making up for it so far. One of the bulbs went as far as to grow an offshoot. I can't complain about that. I excited to see the flowers when they bloom I just hope they are as beautiful as the pictures on the package. I was somewhat disappointed when the Black Pearl was more of a maroon color instead of black but hey it still bloomed and for that I am thankful. I may even get some seeds from the pod of the Black Pearl as soon as it dries out and pops. The one thing that gets me is the room, bu that I mean I am getting cramped with all the Amaryllis bulbs I have growing. My husband has let me keep the bulbs I started in 2009 in his shop because it gets cold in there but never freezing. Which is exactly what my bulbs need. Unlike other bulbs (tulips) Amaryllis bulbs should not be frozen, they should just be cold like a refrigerator, I was not about to throw all my food out just to get a bulb to go dormant. If I am lucky the bulbs may bloom this year. I have my fingers crossed.

My Black Pearl Amaryllis in Full Bloom

It doesn't look that Black does it?

Black Pearl Amaryllis update

Novmber 28, 2011

November 27, 2011

November 23,2011



November 19, 2011

Well here are the pics of my Black Pearl amaryllis as it has started growing. I think the bulb was simply waiting until the Zombie bloomed before it decided it was going to start. That way it would allow the zombie to show itself and not be upstaged once the jumbo black pearl started. I have seen many pics of Black pearl amaryllis and the color of the bloom vary. I might be the flower or it might be the photographer's use of light. The one thing I can say it that the flower is a dark red and I mean DARK.

I am looking forward to seeing what this one will be. I have nine other amaryllis that I have recently forced into dormancy. The colors that I have range from white to pink. I have quite a few that I started from seeds but I have no idea what color they will be. If the parent plant was a hybrid (and I really think it is) there is no telling what color the flower will be once the bulb reaches bloom size. The base of some of the leaves have been red so I am predicting that the flower will be red. I read in the book Hippeastrum the gardener's amaryllis that when the bulb has gone through it's second winter you have to make it go dormant. So I have twenty bulbs in pots going dormant. I tell my little girl that they are taking a nap.

Zombie Amaryllis 11-17-2011

This is a picture of my Zombie amaryllis. It is growing faster than I expected. I will be posting other pictures as it grows taller and eventually blooms.

Zombie amaryllis 11-13-2011

This is a picture of the Zombie amaryllis I potted. If you follow the succession you can see just how fast it is growing. I'm going to take a picture of it every day so that I will be able to show you just how fast it is growing.

My Zombie amaryllis is just growing and growing

Well I could not believe it. The Mini Zombie Amaryllis I purchased and potted on the 5th of this month is growing so fast. It's gaining about an inch a day. It's a mini and I've never had a mini Amaryllis before so I have absolutely no idea just how small, or should I say how big it will bet. This picture was taken on 11-12-2011. I am sooooo looking forward to how this will look. My birthday is Thanksgiving this year and at the rate this little bulb is growing it just might be in bloom by then. That would be a wonderful birthday present.

Black Pearl Amaryllis starting to grow

Honestly I had no idea how long it would be until I saw my Black Pearl start to show any growth, but here I am posting that indeed my Black pearl is showing signs of growth. It isn't much but it's something. It is hard to see but you can see a bit of growth starting to show. I an so excited I just don't how to contain it. I really did not expect to see any growth until at least a week. And here it is growing. I bought the bulbs on eBay and I am definitely going to purchase more from this seller. The one thing I am somewhat worried about is will it produce a bulb or will it just be leaves. I have gotten bulbs in the past and they did nothing but produce leaves and no flower I hope that is not the case with these. As the bulbs grow I will post pics of the way they look.

Zombie amaryllis

Well I potted my Zombie amaryllis and it's already starting to grow. I have had amaryllis's before but I can't recall them growing like this. Maybe it's because it's a double, or perhaps it was just time. Either way I could not be happier. The Black pearl I potted has gotten greener but other than that nothing yet. I really do expect the Zombie to flower first. I read on a blog that the zombie may flower in less than three weeks. If mine does it will but just in time for my birthday, I only hope that my four-year-old does not destroy it like she did to the tulips I had in the house last year. She is older now and I hope that she understands that she is not suppose to dig up the plant just because you feel like it.

a new addition to my flower family

Well several months ago (August actually) I bought two amaryllis bulbs a mini double amaryllis called Zombie, why it has that name is a mystery to me. The other one I purchased was called a Black Pearl. The Black Pearl is what is called a jumbo. Well I got them yesterday and yes I planted them within hours of getting them. The Zombie had already started to sprout and so I knew I could not waste any time in getting it in the ground. I have never had a double amaryllis and am really looking forward to having one and watching it bloom. It is my hope that I will be able to cross the two and come up with something completely different. Wouldn't it be something if I came up with a double black pearl, or a something that no one has ever seen before. I am hopeful. I guess the most important thing is that I have fun and enjoy myself. I really do enjoy plants and watching them grow. It takes a while when you are growing bulbs from seeds but not impossible. The hardest thing is waiting because you have no idea what color they will be. Most Amaryllis now days are hybrids so there is absolutely no telling what color your plants will be. It could look like the mother, the father or the plant you got the seed from with hybrids there is no way of telling. It is exciting for me to see what will happen. I will keep you posted with words and pictures.

My plant had babies

Normally when you grow an Amaryllis bulb from a seed it takes several years usually 5 for it to reach bloom size. So back in 2009 I estimated that I would not get to see a bloom until 2014 possibly 2013 at the earliest. Imagine my surprise when I was watering my plants and saw that the bulb had what appeared to be offshoots, from my research the bulb can not have off-shoots until it is large enough to flower or bloom. Also from my research it can not bloom unless it has four or more leaves (this bulb has six). This is an Amaryllis that I grew from a seed and I am so hopeful that it will bloom. I have no idea what color it will be, the parent plant was a Minerva, which is a Dutch Hybrid so there is no telling what color the bloom will be or what size. Nevertheless I will be happy, happy, happy, and feel that I have really accomplished something.

Amaryllis bulb sprouts

I have started planting my new crop of amaryllis seeds. So far I have eight in small pots. To date I have three sets of them. 2009, 2010, and now 2011. It takes them around five years for the bulb to get large enough to bloom. I am hopeful that everything will be good and that I will have some wonderfully beautiful plants. I only have two more years to go before I expect the first set to bloom. When I see the first bud start to emerge from the bulb I know that I will be so excited and happy.

New Amaryllis bulb 2011

This is a bulb I started this year. The quarter beside it is a typical size quarter. I like the fact that you can see the two roots that are growing on the beginning bulb. To me it is amazing that a flower as large as the Amaryllis can start from such a small seed, but then it has always amazed me about how plants can grow from such small seeds, especially when the seeds are little more than dust for example a butterfly bush.
I will say one thing, if you want to grow Amaryllis bulbs you have to be patient because it takes an estimated five years before it will reach blooming size. The worst thing for me is the waiting to find out what color the flowers will be because when you start growing it from a seed there is a very good possibility that the flower when it finally blooms will not be the same color as the parent plant. You can blame that one on hybrids. If the bulb has an offshoot the offshoot bulb will be the same color as the parent plant. To date none of my bulbs have had any off shoots, but I am hopeful that one day when will. All I have to do is take care of them.

Amaryllis growth

Back in 2009 I decided to try and grow an amaryllis bulb. I did not have much to work with but I did have the desire to try. It has not been easy but it has been rewarding. I made the decision this year to keep the bulbs outside when the weather started getting warm. The plants seem to do better when they have natural sunlight. The bulbs were in 5 inch pots in my cold frame. The cold frame as of now is only a large wooden box without a top. I took the top off because the plants would get to hot if I closed it, I guess you could say it looks like a large planter. Anyway I put the plants in there because if the wind is blowing the walls of the cold frame will protect the plants I don't have to worry about them. Yesterday I noticed several of the leaves of the bulbs were getting somewhat bigger that I expected. Anyway I decided to re pot one of the bulbs. I choose a bulb that had rather large leaves. I was surprised at just how large the bulb had gotten. I have a total of twenty bulbs I started in 2009 and I am going to re pot them all in six inch pots. I don't expect all of them to be as large as the one I most recently re potted but, at the rate this one is growing I do expect a bloom within the next two years.

amaryllis sprouts

Well the amaryllis seeds I placed in water have sprouted. The next step is to wait until I see a little bit of green and then I will put the seedlings into dirt. I generally use seed starter mix. It dries out fast so I have to water is more than normal.

Amaryllis seed starting

The best way to start an amaryllis seed from my experience is to place the seeds in a bowl of water. It may take a while but the seeds that are viable will sprout. I do not put the seeds in any type of seed starting mix until the seeds have a leaf that you can clearly see is a leaf. It will be green and it will look like a small blade of grass to begin with.

amaryllis seeds

Well after I counted the seeds that came from my amaryllis seed pods this year I ended up with over 150 seeds from the most recent plant this time. I guess I must know how to pollinate the flower to have gotten that many viable seeds. The way you can tell if a seed is viable is you can feel a small seed in the tissue like paper that came from the pod. With this amount of seeds I am going to have to do this year just as I have done the past several years. And that is start sprouting them about a dozen at the time.

I use what is called the California method when sprouting my seeds. The California method is that you place the seeds in water and wait for them to sprout. I check them every day and when they have a small green leaf I place it in a shallow pan (with drain holes) that contains seed starting mix. The seed starting mix does not hold water very well so I water it every day and wait until the water comes out the bottom.

Amaryllis pods

Well it has taken a while but my amaryllis seed pods have popped. It takes a while and it is something that can not be rushed. You have to let the seed pod dry out naturally. This amaryllis bloomed almost two months ago. My guess is that I will get around 75 to 85 seeds (hopefully more). I already have over 300 already from other plants from this year. The amaryllis that these seeds came from is the same amaryllis that all my current 3 year bulbs have come off of, so it is special to me. I am hopeful that the bulbs I started two years ago will bloom in the next two years. It takes around 5 years for a amaryllis bulb that has been grown from a seed to reach bloom size.

Ammaryllis seed pods

The first Amaryllis I got did not bloom last year. The only thing I can come up with is that it did not get enough light. I know it was not dead because the leaves grew out of it ad they were a wonderful green color. I dug the Amaryllis up last year and placed it in a 6 inch pot and waited. I know that bulbs need a dormant period of time so I did not water it. I just let it sis in the pot in the dark (or should I say the semi-dark). Well several weeks ago it started to grow and of course I started watering the plant and I was rewarded with a beautiful bloom and when the blooms opened I was rewarded with what I now know is a Minerva Amaryllis. I took my small paint brush and pollinated the flower in the hopes that the flower would give me some seed pods. From the looks of the pods I think I will be getting some seeds this year. I just don't know how many, of if they will be viable.

My First Flower

I want to begin this post by giving you a little history about what started my love of plants and gardening. It really started Christmas 2006. It was the first Christmas with my husband. My mother-in-law gave me an amaryllis bulb kit. She assured me that it was easy to grow and because it was a bulb it would bloom year after year. Well I planted it in the pot it came with and watered it, and true enough it bloomed. It was one of the largest and most beautiful flowers I had ever seen and the fact that I had gotten it to bloom, was the ultimate reward for me. The following spring I planted it in the yard and was rewarded with another bloom. I was ecstatic this beautiful flower had bloomed again. I was sure that I wanted more of this beautiful flower but I was unaware bulbs have seeds that I could harvest plant and have more of. I always thought that the only way to have more bulbs was to let it divide over time, man was I wrong. That first year I did not collect the seeds from the seed pods, but keep in mind I knew next to nothing about plants. My second Christmas with my husband I was gifted with another amaryllis kit from my mother-in-law (it was becoming a tradition of sorts) and I did the same thing I did with the amaryllis I had gotten, and was rewarded with another bloom. I planted it in the yard the coming spring next to the first amaryllis bulb. Imagine my surprise when they both bloomed at the same time.