Seedling Question

Following the excellent advice from this forum I started a few seeds two years ago. The seedlings were potted up this spring--to 6" pots, left outside and ignored all summer. Now that I am starting to move things inside I see that the plants have all started multiple suckers. My question--Should I remove all the bulblets and re-pot or leave them attached and just bring them in? I understand that I might get flowers the third year so want to give the plants the best opportunity possible. Thanks for all the great information y'all have posted in the past and any advice you can give me now.

This is a shot that is typical of all my seedlings.

Bill

OK Bill,
Here's the thing. If you planted seed from a hybrid parent, every seedling will be a little different. If you put one seedling in a pot and you now have multiple small bulbs, all those bulbs will be genetically identical. Yes, your bulbs may grow faster if separated and given their own pots, but the extra growing room and fresh soil may also cause them to divide again. This is a good thing if you want to produce lots of starts and plants for sale, but it does take up masses of space which can be a problem especially if you have to take your plants inside. Also, as soon as you separate them you have to worry about labelling them so you will always know they are identical - then the cats have a fight in the backyard and knock half your labels out etc etc.

I would be more inclined to take the whole clump as is, and move it into a one gallon pot for the next years growth. You should certainly be able to get flowers in a one gallon pot, even with the extra bulbs, and then you will know which ones are worth your while to divide and propagate. I would also look for a fertiliser for your next growing season with more potassium and phosphorus than nitrogen, since excess nitrogen can cause this kind of growth, though it does arise spontaneously - in any given batch of seedlings there are always some that do it to me. Depending on your conditions you could do your repotting now, but I would be more inclined to leave it and do it in the spring as soon as new growth starts to show.

Your plants are now at the age where they may or may not decide to go dormant for the winter. Sometime the largest bulbs in a clump will loose all their leaves and the babies will keep them. I often think that full winter dormancy in a seedling bulb is a good sign of approaching maturity in a Hippeastrum. Making their growing conditions that tiny bit more clement if you can might keep them all going through winter, albeit at a slower pace, but it will result in larger bulbs sooner. I have been looking at your photo again and I think you have lovely seedlings - benign neglect is obviously the way to go! I also envy you your 6" pots - for some reason pot manufacturers over here in Oz make a lot more round than square pots, and I have never seen 6' square pots of that height. They have obviously been just perfect for your seedlings. How many pots of hippies do you have? I also wanted to point out that a naturally clumping Hippie can be a VERY GOOD thing - this is a link to one of my favourite plants and it started out as a early clumper like yours http://davesgarden.com/community/journals/viewentry/160541/

Feel free to stay and browse in my journal if you want, I have just spent a week or so collating all my odd paper notes and stuff off of labels into it, and I uploaded a stack more of photos while doing so. I have also made a resolution to KEEP BETTER RECORDS this year! I couldn't believe how many things there were that I wanted to know that I had never bothered to write down somewhere! It is one week into spring here and I am now looking over my unflowered small plants for candidates to go up to the one gallon size. Three of my large specimen plants are in bud now and I am taking bets with myself as to how many will flower this year due to my house move two months ago.

So, just as your Hippeastrum year is ending mine begins, well there is always SOMETHING to do when you have a garden! It seems everything wants to be repotted this year, maybe it is because I have moved everything, and thus handled them all closely. My plan is to top dress all the big guys with compost and fertiliser first and completely repot all the small ones as soon as possible. Then after the flowering season is over I want to give all the big Hippies a really good going over and clean up as they are all looking a bit tatty. We had (by our standards) a fairly hard winter - several near frost episodes with one overnight low of 1.9C/35.4F and a lot of 4C/39F and 5C/41F nights so I am mostly looking at completely dormant bulbs or ones with one or two dangling red-spotted yellowing excuses for leaves, Yucko! Mind you they get a bit like this every year and it has never bothered them at all - as soon as the daytime temperatures start to rise off they go.

I have just looked back at this and see that I have moved from advice to general rambling, so I will say enjoy your Baby Hippies, and,

TTFN, KK.

Wow, KK, what a generous post! These seedlings are H. striatum pollinated to a Red Lion and vice-versa. So far I've been able to keep the labels in place--lol. I have chipmunks who try to dig them out--no cats! If I were to separate and pot up all the bulblets I would have to get a much larger GH. Ther are six plants of each cross so even 12 one gallon pots will strain my space but I will still give it a go. I think that waiting till spring to repot will work. That way they will have a whole summer to grow in their spacious new home and I will have the whole summer to figure out where to put them!

My Red Lion now has four bulbs in a 3 gallon pot and blooms well. The striatum seems to be a clumper and presently has 5 flower stalks--It blooms regularly all year, never dormant. There are two new seed pods so I will no doubt be adding to my space problem soon!

Thank you so much for your time and expertise--It is greatly appreciated. I envy you your spring as we head into the fall season.

Here is the RL last March.

Bill

This is the striatum today--Looking a bit tattered. I chose these two to cross because they are so different--color, size and blooming behavior. Now that year three is approaching I am getting more and more eager for the fruit of the experiment!

Bill

Hi Bill,
Glad to have been of help. Thanks for the parentage info on your cross - it looks like both of the parents tend to multiply, so at least the seedlings come by it honestly! I will be waiting with baited breath to see what your flowers are like - this could be really interesting, especially since you have done the cross in both directions.

Ciao, KK.