Well, Patricia; The single bulb I bought 6 seasons ago has been exclusively fed with a German liquid fertilizer 6-3-6 which is not perfect (for bulbous plants; I guess 4-4-8 would be perfect) but it worked as you can see. This fertilizer is applied every time in a dilution of 1 to 1.5 mL/L lukewarm water which I administer carefully every 2nd day - from the bottom, into the "saucer" (too giant to be a saucer as you can guess *ggg*). Imagine; I never saw "Giraffe" available in Germany; so under normal circumstances I should not possess this cultivar. I detected this bulb which was among others labeled as "Yellow Goddess" but the shape of this one individual bulb was different. What a luck I have had that I picked it up. 4 Years did I NOT know what the name of this hybrid was, BUT: I was overwhealmed by its wild charm from the first flower on . Enough motivation for me to do the very best for this tiny treasure (not being tiny any more with a medium stem length of 60 cm). Today I performed the following statistics for this season: 9 bulbs, 6 with one stem, including the mother bulb; 3 with two stems. Bud count 2 on 4 stems; 3 on 5 stems; 4 on 3 stems. These latter 3 stems where the first stems of the 2-stem bulbs; every 2nd stem bearing 3 buds (funny that). 29 blooms have been self-pollinated. Until now I have not been successfull in that, and therefore the attempt on a bigger scale now. The last 6 flowers are reserved for pollination with my first 1 y old H.cybister 'Chico' which I failed to time appropriately and which is to open its first flowers on Easter Sunday. I am putting big hopes for - and in this crossbreeding. This modern hybrid can be very much recommended, as I can tell from my experiences. It does need less heat than other gardener's amaryllis (this feature should be a gift from H.papilio) and multplies well. If you provide a longer cultivation period indoors ( -> more leaves) you can yield up to 3 stems on a 26+ cm-bulb. (I did NOT because these BIG cluster pots and this jungle of leaves do not fit to my growing tables indoors). There is no considerable bulb shrinking when the stems have emerged. Although at the time of bloom only 3 new leaves are present you obtain finally a nice bush of leaves during summer. These green based blooms are up to 16 cm in diameter (top to bottom) perfectly shaped and vividly (coarsely) frilled and exactly horizontally directed on their individual long, 6 to 10 (!) cm flower stalklets. And the best thing is coming now, at the very end of my description and my appraisals of GIRAFFE: No single word is lost about it in a modern booook on gardener's amaryllis which has been released from Great Britain a few years ago. Meanwhile I believe this indicates something which I should have to find out. And yes, the same thing applies for 'MELUSINE' an outstanding hybrid, too. Hans-Werner

*rollingonthefloorlaughing* That was great comments; thank you! Interestingly there is a differentiation between two kinds of daughter bulbs (..."babies" )... bulblets which appear on the outermost part of the basal plate, and bulbils which are formed between two bulb scales which are still alive. So the first leaves of this latter kind of offsets emerge between these scales, and the daughter bulbs becomes visible as individuuals not before these bulb scales finally age and dry up. A very low count of offsets is a pity - on the other hand a very rich offset production can be an imprecation, too - if the mother bulb is likely to sacrifice too much of its own material by this production of babies so that it finally drops below the minimum size to become or maintain bloomable size. Well - I do not know any Hippeastrum which exhibits this unfavourable behaviour - so far. But there exist indeed other amaryllids which tend to sacrifice themselves in favour of a rich offset prodution, for example Ismene (Hymenocallis) x festalis and I guess that the blooming capability of Cyrtanthus elaus (the former Vallota) is often impaired by the same effect. Hans-Werner PS: One example for rich (although not detrimental) daughter bulb formation - my clump of "Cantate" after 10y husbandry - without ever having divided it (I simply transpotted it into bigger containers; as appropriate, actually one 25L bucket) href>

This also came from Telos, and I'm pretty sure the majority of Diane's plants are seed grown, with a few exceptions of course. Bill, would you like to swap offsets before really cold weather sets in? I always try to get non-clonal extras for cross-pollination. Lmk.... Thanks, Rick in CT

Oops, forgot I'd posted here so sorry for not getting back to you good folks before now! I do use perlite but it's not my fav ingredient as I find it can sometimes go green with algae when it works it's way up to the surface. It's floaty nature can be annoying also, it washes out if the mix given time and I end up with a top layer of pumice especially when watering overhead. Also, for taller plants it doesn't give stability to the pots so I tend to use it in lesser amounts these days. I tend to use whatever I have available here in the U.K., mainly bagged potting mixes which I amend with various other bits and pieces as mentioned above. The bark I get in handy sized bags from the big pet warehouse style stores. It's small grade so no need to break it up and is sold as reptile substrate. Aquarium gravel is also a good ingredient as I have a supply from our redundant tropical fish tank. I grow mainly Crassula/Jade trees in their many different forms, a few stapelias, holiday cacti, as I believe they as referred to in the US, and 'Compton Carousel' Echeverias. BTW, another hippie is in bloom....can't for the life of me remember it's name....(scratches head). I don't think this is Red Lion, it's too orange, no doubt it's the mother bulb of my other mystery orange! Will have to try and find some names to look through and maybe jog my memory....any suggestions?Regards, Gill