Sprekelia Formosissima

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Sprekelia Formosissima, A plant I would love to see flowering in my garden. I have about a dozen bulbs for the last 10 years. I got only one flower during this period. I have tried everything I could think of; keeping the pots in in full sun, partial shade, shade with good in direct light, in the ground in full sun, semi shade etc. Now they are back in a large planter having well drained coarse mix.
Friends living in and around Lahore if they have the experience of growing this plant successfully, please advise me.

[khabbab]

Most bulbs from Amaryllidaceae family do very well apart from some exceptions (like Leucojum). I think the bulb was not healthy or not from good cultivar. 10 years a long time, and an expert gardener like you tried every thing, must be some problem with the bulb. I would try this one in fall and let you know the results.

[Heinie]

Muhammad,
I am new here but I grow Sprekelia Formosissima bulbs too. These bulbs are not very reliable flowerers although mine flower every 2 or 3 years. These bulbs want to be planted deep, 100mm to 150mm below surface. If they are planted too shallow they put all their energy into forming many offsets and do not flower regularly or not at all.

I have crossed Sprekelia Formosissima with a Hippeastrum Red Lion in 2008 and they flowered last year.

This is a photo of the Hippeastrum Red Lion


This is a photo of the Sprekelia Formosissima I used in the cross


This is the result of the cross. There are many signs of both parents in the photos to follow. Look at the width of the petals. They are wider than the Sprekelia and narrower than the Red Lion. Red peduncle like Sprekelia. Only 2 flowers like Sprekelia. The shape of the flower is much like Sprekelia too.




Regards
Heinie

[aykhan]

Welcome Heinie. This is wonderful information and you have an excellent hybrid. I love it! Thanks for sharing.

Brig sahib I planted these bulbs last year and the flower was miserable. Now they are putting out foliage. I think I will take the above advice and plant them deeper when they are dormant.

[aykhan]

BTW Heinie your plant seems somewhat different than Durgha Pradhan the commercially available cross of amaryllis with sprelia.

[Farhan Ahmed]

Fascinating.

[Heinie]

The flowers from my cross is different from the commercilly crossed plant but I like my cross morewith the wider petals and the colour like sheen is also more beautiful on mine in my opinion. I am sure that my Red Lion Hippi is different to the one used by the commercial growers and that my Red Lion has much broader petals therefor the reason I chose it to do the cross. I have a number of other different breed of reds too.

Six bulbs from the same cross flowered last year and they are all very similar. Only one bulb had some thin white lines running down the middle of the petals. It is also different in petal shapes and I kept that one too plus the one above and gave the others to friends. Here is a photo of the flower with the white lines which was not fully open at that stage and you will see the second flower in the back ground that is yet to open. I do not know where the lines comes from but I do not mind having it at all.

[aykhan]

This is truely remarkable! Which was the pod parent and have you crossed spreklia with any other amaryllis?

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Dear Heinie,
Good havens here you are talking of Spreklia Hipeastrum cross while I am still struggling to get it to bloom. Please show me some pictures of your Spreklia, The leaves of your plant are much wider than mine.
Also tell me about the media you use and the sun your plants get.
Thanks
Arif

[Heinie]

Aykhan, the pod parent was a Sprekelia. My reasoning was to obtain more of the Sprekelia attributes in which I think I succeeded.

Muhammad, the first photo above of the Sprekelia with some leaves are the best I have of the full plant. I very seldom photograph leaves of plants unless it is something special. Between all the bulbs, young and old, the leaf width is between 10mm and 20mm.

My Sprekelia bulbs are planted in 25cm plastic pots with a very sandy mix, about 70 percent, with a fair amount of grit and some compost. During the growing season I place the pots in full sun all day in a southern position in the yard. The bulbs are kept completely dry during winter.

I have a moisture meter to measure the depth of dampness in the pots planted with bulbs until I establish the watering cycles. I allow the growing medium for these bulbs to almost dry in the pots before I water every 2 weeks. I follow the Drainage Mythology principle of Paul Cumbleton of Middlesex in the UK.