@kaboehm: of course, first with seeds of hippeastrum crosses, and when my rhodophiala's will bloom, i'll try to make crosses between hippeastrum and rhodophiala. and i want to add a papilio and some cybisters too. @dondeldux: that time is long gone :)

Hi :) It's crazy how fast the buds can change colors from white to red or orange. Everyone has given good advice, where did you get this bulb that it's forced to bloom at this time of year? Hippeastrum blooms build up in the bulbs from the prior growing season by nutrition the leaves, watering and food give it. If they aren't aloud to mature then they wont produce the bloom stalk within. Hippeastrum will bloom without a forcing period, the forcing period just promotes the stalk to elongate within the plant but they will flower on their own time if you allow them. I have a plant blooming right now actually! If you do plan to force it you need to let it get atleast a 9 month growing period, 10 would be better! At this point you can stop watering and let it rest. If you want to get it on the right schedule you can let it remain green until next years winter months. Most Hippeastrum will bloom without a dormancy, if they want to sleep they will tell you, the leaves will start to yellow and die back. When they're ready to wake up they'll start growing again, they're pretty easy plants as long as you listen to them! Make sure you feed them, water them and watch for bugs and they'll reward you with flowers! OH, BTW, Veronica Read says that all Hippeastrum hybrids are evergreen, if you keep them as a normal houseplant they will usually bloom late winter to early spring, some will bloom in summer or fall depending on the plant! ENJOY! Josh

Hi Josh, Yup..looks just like mine did...I though maybe they'd be a bit different... the same right down to the speckled tongue!! I hope you got a change to at least self it since Rebel sets great seedpods..I have about 15 or so from my selfing that survived and are doing very well. I only had one stalk and only two flowers though..hope you got 4 flowers..Thanks for posting, I was dying to see another one! Donna

Hi Arif, I agree that this is what we recognize as splitting, but my point is that splitting is not fundamentally different from offsetting. In both cases an additional meristem develops, which results in the formation of a new bulb. When the new bulb develops at margin of the basal plate, it is manifested in what we recognize as offsetting. When the new bulb develops in the vicinity of the growing meristem, then it results in splitting of the bulb. When the new bulb is initiated somewhere in between, the result is a splitting that is more asymmetrical than what we normally recognize as splitting. Someone else might call it offsetting in this case, which is fine. My point is that there is no clear line to distinguish the two processes. Bill .