Growing Hippeastrum In An Apartment

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Hippeastrum - knightly star

This plant with large, luxurious flowers is known to most indoor floriculture lovers. Its real name is hippeastrum (translated from the Greek hippeastrum - knightly star) from the amaryllis family.

Hippeastrum differs from real amaryllis in larger sizes of the plant itself and flowers, as well as in the flowering time. But for some reason, among amateur flower growers, it is customary to call it amaryllis. Of course, the latter used to be a widespread houseplant, but then hippeastrum - numerous multi-colored hybrids came into fashion.

This bulbous plant is quite unpretentious to care for. The bulbs can live and bloom for 20 years, and with good care, the plant can delight you with its luxurious flowers twice a year. Of course, it is for the sake of flowers that hippeastrum is grown. An acquaintance of mine, who has a very average income in her family, is going to her relatives and friends for her birthday and cuts the flower arrows of the hippeastrum, which she skillfully grows. The bouquet turns out to be simply regal, especially since the cut is in water from two weeks to a month.

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But not everyone succeeds in growing amaryllis successfully. I was interested in the secrets of this plant because of this incident. Once my friend - the head of the local library, keen on indoor floriculture, offered me hippeastrum bulbs.

When I asked why she was distributing planting material for such an interesting flower, I heard that she had hippeastrum for three years, but during this time she had never bloomed. She thought that the flower had already died, and wanted to occupy the pot with another plant, but when she shook out the ground, instead of one bulb, she found several large ones and a whole bunch of small ones.

The bulbs looked quite alive and healthy, and I asked to tell how exactly the hippeastrum was planted and how it was looked after in order to understand the reason for this behavior of this unpretentious plant.

A friend said that she had long dreamed of starting a hippeastrum, so when she was presented with a bulb of this plant, she allocated the best, largest pot for it. She didn't bother with the ground, she took a simple garden garden from the site. I planted the onion as usual, at its three heights. By spring, elongated leaves appeared, and she began to water the hippeastrum and feed it with "Ideal", but by the end of summer the leaves wilted. There was no flowering. And so it was repeated for another two years.

I listened to her story and thought: why do many people take plants and animals and begin to diligently care for them, without trying to find out in advance what exactly their pets need. When they die, people are surprised: after all, it seems, they tried, did what they could. Exactly so: what they could, and not at all what was needed. Let's figure it out in order.

For the hippeastrum, it is very important which pot it is planted in. The pot is selected with such a diameter that around the bulb there is no more than 3-4 cm of free space at the planting level.

The composition of the soil mixture is also important, it must be nutritious, since feeding begins from the moment of flowering, and not earlier. The soil mixture is made up of turf, leafy soil, peat and sand in a ratio of 1: 2: 1: 1. Drainage is made at the bottom of the pot.

The hippeastrum bulb is planted semi-deep, that is, at least a third of it, or even the entire upper half, should protrude above the soil level. After planting, water the plant to better compact the soil, but subsequent watering until the bulb awakens should be minimized and carried out into the pan.

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Now about leaving. As the leaves grow, watering is increased, and from the moment the flower arrow protrudes, they begin regularly, once a week, feed the plant with a fertilizer solution for flowers.

In order to prolong flowering, it is better to transfer the hippeastrum to a cooler place, and remove the anthers of the stamens before opening them. After flowering, the arrow of the flower is cut off, leaving a stump with a height of 2-3 cm, but until the end of growth, continue to water and feed the plants.

In autumn, the hippeastrum usually has a period of rest. Watering is reduced, dead leaves are cut off. A pot with hippeastrum (more precisely, again with an onion) is placed in a dark, cool place with a temperature of about + 12 ° C. It is watered occasionally, in a pallet, in order to prevent the roots from dying off, but not allowing the soil to be completely soaked in the ground.

And in December it usually starts all over again. Once a year, the top 2-3 cm of soil in the pot should be replaced with a new one. The bulb is transplanted into a new pot every 2-3 years, as it grows, that is, when it becomes cramped in the old one.

Hippeastrum is usually propagated by daughter bulbs, which are separated from the mother during plant transplantation. However, the baby does not need to be separated to get more flower arrows in one pot.

Some growers are engaged in home breeding of hippeastrum, for which they practice seed propagation. This way you can get very interesting colors, two-tone and shaded. The anthers of the stamens are removed from the mother plant before they are opened, and the pollen of the father flower, preferably of a different color, is transferred to the flower pistil with a needle.

It is better to take pollen on the first or second day after opening the anthers, when its viability is especially high. Plants grown from seeds usually bloom in the 3-4th year! An exciting and exciting activity, and the result can be amazing.

In order to extend the hippeastrum flowering holiday in your house, you can plant bulbs, or expose the pots of bulbs to light and heat at intervals of two to three weeks so that they wake up and bloom in turn. Then the cavalier's star will decorate your home almost all year round!