Twizzlestick,

They look great! We all have our own methods of achieving success with these bulbs and what works for you is the way to go, don't change things. Now when you say you planted in Miracle Grow, do you mean the Miracle Grow potting soil that is laced with fertilizer pellets or do you use the liquid (which I use with additional pellets) to achieve your success? Do you find any difference when you use clay pots versus plastic which I see you use both..?

When you say this is a 1 year bulb, do you mean one year old seedling or a purchased bulb that you've had for one year..just curious because if it's a seedling then I'd continue to let it grow over the winter but if it's an older bulb that has already bloomed for you than your doing the right think..keep it up and post pictures when you have flowers..

Donna

I'm a lazy caretaker that is the success lol.
This dirt can get waterlogged so mostly I let
whatever rain we got take care of them. I watered
a few times though when we were getting over 100
during the summer. My guess is that when it is
very hot they are heavy feeders because the roots
are huge.

It was just Miracle grow potting mix because
it was more loose than the other types available.
I give them a slight vinegar bath every so often too
2tbsp gallon to lower the ph a little more than
the dirt and it seems to pick up their growing
speed. PH 7 down to around PH 5.8.

I did the whole coarse dirt product last year with
some but, I'm too inattentive and they went dormant
lol. That and a lot of the products were not readily
available nearby. My mother is heavy on water so the
coarse stuff would work better for her.

It was a tiny pup that I pulled off the mother plant
with only one root. It hasn't bloomed but, probably
will in the spring. My seedlings are about half
this size. I'm lazy this year so they are all going
to sleep.

Seeing how well they rooted though I'm going to
get them pots two sizes up.

The only difference I have with pots being clay/plastic
is that clay dries the dirt faster and plastic works
better on quick growing things but, I can grow in
either doesn't matter. The black nursery pot in
the background is an experiment in mutation.

I read an article on graft mutation. I basically grafted
a large piece of a hippeastrum cousin onto a bulb and
it took. At the site of the graft strange things may
occur between the two different plants.In a year or
so I'm going to take a piece of the grafted area and
see if I can get a plant from it.

I too use miracle grow soil because it is convenient and I don't have the physical strength to do a lot of hauling and mixing. I do add some extra perlite for better drainage and had problems last winter in my greenhouse from low temperatures and the fact that it had never been caulked on the north side, (And an unusally wet and cold winter) so I had a lot of water flowing in and on the floor and the air was constantly too damp. That has been corrected hopefully for this year. And if I had adequate sunny grow room inside I would not have had this problem, but did the best with what I had. I tried growing in the expanded clay pellets and lost all of those to rot. Perhaps I will mix some of them into my garden soil to take up and release moisture.

Twizzlestick,

Please tell us more about your grafting project..how and what two plants you used and what you hope to get from this union. My husband routinely grafts rhododendron cuttings but I never even thought of grafting a bulb?? Very Interesting...Did you just insert a slice of one bulb into the other and they fused??

Donna

lizaliy
I tried to find just perlite but, nobody has it locally so I went with what is here. I could have mixed pea gravel in or something but, don't see much use for that. Never tried clay pellets although some use clay cat litter.

Donna
Zephyranthes citrina
Hymenocallis
Red Lion Hippeastrum

I hope to see if they do anything unusual and if material along the graft transfers any genetics...as the article suggested. I'm not an expert. This was just fun using inexpensive plants. I don't have an exact goal in mind other than see what it will do. If I works I might move up to something more exotic.

Twizzle, can you tell me how you did it!?! I'd love to see pictures!!

There really isn't much to see as it has grown over. I cut a small triangle out of wood so the cuts would be as close as possible and make the most contact. I took a sterilized razor and traced to a certain depth (marked on the razor with a sharpie) into the bulbs in the same triangle shape and exchanged the triangles into each bulb. Red lion got two triangles.

I sealed around the cuts with grafting wax and put a piece of tape over it. It callused over and I'm waiting till next summer to take tissue samples there and see if I get a plant at the graft site.

If it yields anything I'll make a video next time.

Here are some of the articles I read on graft mutation. Maybe I am naive but, it was something interesting to do. If nothing comes of it I'll still have the bulbs as I don't believe the cuts will really harm them.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5927/649.abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19407205