I stumbled on some boxed gift sets of Red Lion amaryllis for $1.25 at a post-holiday sale, so I bought about as many as I could carry.
When I opened them at home, I found that most had blown in the box and had two dried scapes attached to each bulb, but they were still just beginnig to push up a third scape. I prepped and potted them in the coir from the set to which I added some bulb booster. While a few buds died, and their bulbs just started growing foliage, most are slowly growing their blooms, and the buds are getting huge.
One is confusing me. The blooms had blown, and it had started making offsets. As I peeled and cleaned it, I saw that the scape had rotted instead of drying. I first tried scooping it out with an old sculpting tool and eventually used a jet of water to flush out the rot. By the time I was done, it went all the way through to a small opening in the base. The body of the bulb is still firm.
I'm wondering if I could split or quarter the bulb vertically, as you can do with a Crinum bulb to make it produce a lot of offsets, or if I should just plant it as is, and let it get on with the three offsets it has started.
While I'm trying to figure out what to do, I've left it in a saucer of wet, sterile sand in the refrigerator. It's been there for at least a couple of weeks and still looks great, but of course there's no new growth.
Have any of you dealt with a hollow, but otherwise healthy amaryllis bulb before? Has anyone tried multiplying an amaryllis by splitting or quartering it?
What to do with a hollow amaryllis bulb?
I'll be waiting for answers along with you. In the meantime I would not split it!
As the bulb is, it probably will make more than one bulblet,but if you quarter it,it probably will make more. It is extremely unlikely to produce enough bulb to bloom next year anyway,so you might as well have several from it.
Good to know. Thanks for the information.
^^ That was my thinking, but I've never tried it. Thanks for the guidance.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Maybe I'll try to document it with my webcam.
^ Fun idea, right?
Sounds like that those bulbs may have been attacked by the Spanish Moth Caterpillar. I have just been studying up on this since a friend mentioned it, and I have gotten interested in the Hippeastrums.
The most likely reason for a hole in the basal plate, notably at the side, concisely on the thickened, corky "ring" area where the roots emerge from (and thus, often remaining un-detected upon the superficial inspection) is the infection by the maggot of the big narcissus bulb fly. Merodon equestris
I would not bother myself, to vegetatively propagate, out of damaged plant material, a Knight Star Lily that is reliably available every year.
Sowing seeds from your own crosspollinations - THIS is rewarding.