I assume that the main reasons for failures are too much water, particularly from above and, (associated with that) tarsonemid mites (narcissus bulb mite, Steneotarsonemus laticeps). IF the lower part of the leaves is covered with small red spots and streaks this does indicate the incidence of these mites.
Since then I apply water rather sparingly (into the saucer, every second day) I observe a satisfactory growth behaviour:

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This is already "Mrs. Garfield dimensions" I think. The max. latitude of the biggest leaves is almost 7 cm and the max. length is 40 cm. For comparison this wooden ruler, 30 cm, is included.

Sir Hans...Those are BEAUTIFUL!!! I wonder when I could grow my reticulatums to such state. How big are their bulbs? So far, the reticulatum that shed all of it's leaves IS putting out a new leaf..sighhhh. Thanks for all of your advice. And again thanks for pulling up this thread Soultan.

The leaves are quite striking in color and shape! And very impressive in number and health! Just wonderful!

Now, I have to order Mrs. Garfield... I will write to Rarebulbs to put up one bulb for me, and I buy it. :o) I will tell the retailer what I want to buy. :o)

Soultan...Mrs. Garfield's leaf is paler than reticulatum but a lot more robust and so far not as fussy as the reticulatum.

Interesting... I have no idea why it is not widely available then if it is not really hard to keep...

I have to think it would be that 99% of the market for Hippeastrum is driven by the nursery and "Big Box" stores that primarily sell them as seasonal blooming bulbs that are normally disgarded after blooming. And, they are possibly harder/not likely to be saleable as "larger" bulbs when compared to the other mass produced bulbs.

If it did hit the market, it would be very expensive, I would think... not a chain store item, but more a specialty item sold at garden centers or by specialty tropical plant companies... the longer a plant takes to bloom and the harder it is to grow, the more difficult selling it would be...

It would be nice if some of the rarer plants were available, even if they were pricey and only available through specialty stores...

Most of these rarer plants are available on the net, but they are indeed, very expensive... There is Mrs. Garfield on ebay, but only as a 2-pack. I only want one, so I am waiting for that offer to be put up on ebay, but that would still be $18 for one bulb.

Talking about EXPENSIVE, take a look at this...$60 for a bulb grown in a 3.5" pot...

Isn't Santa coming to town?

Here is a link that might be useful: reticulatum

Oh yes. Without shipping!

Yeah, I guess it's all part of operating a for profit business. You are "supposed to" charge what the market will bear. That's why clubs, societies, and forums like this are so important for the typical hobbiest. We are able to go around high costs sometimes. I've stayed in contact with another guy that is growing a nice variegated Papilio with the hopes we'll be able to swap pollen. My variegated pap has yet to produce an offset, and the mother bulb that produced this one hasn't produced any other variegated offsets.

It's very nice to be able to share and trade plants and seeds... I've always thought/felt that gardening should be shared, not sold at exorbitant prices!

Maybe it's just me, but I like to share all my hobbies and interests... the barter system has always worked for me, and I prefer it... Money is truly the root of all evil, and it's never been very important to me... I'd rather be broke and happy than rich and miserable... once you have lots of money, you find that there is never enough, and most people that have money love money the most... not everyone, mind you, but plenty do... my family and friends are worth more than any amount of money, and are most important to me...

I was the original poster of this thread (over 7 years ago!) and just had to share the news. My amarylis silhouette, aka Hippeastrum reticulatum v.striatifolium, has finally flowered! I've posted a picture - hopefully it works.

For those interested, the past few years it has been sitting in a north/east window (dappled sun to midmorning then bright indirect light the rest of the day). It dries out well between thorough waterings, moderate house temperature throughout the year with minor seasonal variations. Direct fertilizer was limited although I do frequently water with aquarium water (a good natural fertilizer). The flowering bulb itself is about 3.5" in diameter and has a total of 9 baby bulbs attached around it. All growing together in a 6" pot which is very crowded. Maybe in another 10 years I'll have a flowering clump with multiple blooms! Definitely a plant to test your patience - thank goodness it has the pretty leaves to admire while waiting :)

Gorgeous!!

Bravo tasdevil. Attached is a photo typical of my clone.
One point I found to be important to this "species" cultivation: unlike most other Hippeastrum these seem to prefer being allowed to draw themselves down into the soil, maintaining their neck right at ground level. I tried moving mine up to mid bulb several times only to be met with a decline in size and growth.

I had to login to say,

WOW one of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seem!!

Old post brings back memories of old friends. Miss ya Soultan!

Anyway, I have given up on these variegated hippies. Our "relationship" is just not working. LOL My frustration with them was actually the main reason I got into clivias as I imported my very first clivias from China, variegated ones of course. I was hooked the moment I unwrapped them from the box. These ones I will will keep "till death do us part". Ha!
This is one of my variegated Light of Buddha clivia.

This post was edited by mariava7 on Tue, Oct 8, 13 at 21:33

This is my experience with them and they pretty much match with what is already been said.

They prefer more gentle light, bit like clivias. I put them out in the sun room and that was a death sentence in a few hours. I live in Scotland and the cooler weather is something they like. They didn't do as well when i had them somewhere warm. They seemed to offset more.

The necks on mine are really tight and prevents moisture flowing down the neck. The bulbs tend to stay milky white instead of greening up when exposed to light so those reasons make me think it does not mind being buried.

They are not widely available as the bulbs don't please as easily as the hybrids. They take a while to recover. They are more often for sale potted up as plants than as dry bulbs for this reason in Europe.

I found them more tolerant to water than my regular hippis. I let some dry out and they didn't like that, I guess I should have known since their roots are much finer.

When I received them all the leaves were yellow and a member of my family took it upon themselves to drench them with water so that didn't help as they were originally in standard soil. Since then some have greened up and improved a bit. They do much better in our cool weather with lack of sun than everything else I grow.

This post was edited by AuntJemima on Wed, Oct 16, 13 at 11:23

Sorry for the delayed response - just wanted to say thank you all for the added tips.

houstonpat - beautiful photo! Interesting point about burying the bulbs deeper. My main bulb is indeed halfway out of the soil, however, all the baby bulbs attached around it are much deeper and fully buried. I don't think there is a way for me to bury the main bulb now without suffocating the babies but it is noteworthy that all the babies are positioned like this fully under the soil (obviously looking like that's how they prefer to grow).

mariava7 - I had received a regular type clivia division from a friend and it blooms every year without fail - definitely a keeper in my collection! Your photo is tempting me to try a variagated one ;)

AuntJemima - now that you mention it, most of the offsets that developed were from when I had the plant growing outside in summer (very hot and humid!) and in south facing windows. Since growing in my cooler north window with no outside summer vacation it has barely offset at all. So perhaps a good thing to encourage maturity of the bulbs. And I wholeheartedly agree that these do not seem to grow well from dried bulbs and once the plant got going it has never gone dormant whatsoever.

Fingers crossed that it's now fairly matured and settled and will become a regular bloomer!

i also have a couple of silhouettes, and mine are making a lot of offsets (last spring it got 4, summer it got 5 and autumn it got 3, and there's another one growing now, lol talking ablout a single bulb)

I looked up this old thread because I purchased a H. Silhouette recently on Ebay. It came with lots of healthy roots and three of those gorgeous striped leaves. I only have east and west facing windows, so it is now sitting in an east window in the "second row" where it gets filtered sunlight. It already grew some new roots so it seems to be happy. I didn't bury it very deep. Now I read that it likes to be buried till the neck. Should I add mor potting mix or will it pull down itself?

What are your Silhouettes are doing? Did they flower regularely after the initial flowering? Do you have any new advices for me growing this beauty?

My bulb isn't blooming size yet and I'm prepared to wait...

Anja

Hi Anja, after many, many tries at cultivating this bulb, I have managed to keep my current H. Reticulatum healthy and growing in size (which could change at any second with this picky bulb lol). I bought it over a year ago at a plant sale and it was so healthy looking that I have tried to copy the growing conditions --similar medium ( light, organic fast draining)and buried so that the bulb is barely below the surface, in the hopes I could keep it healthy. It is currently happy in a North window and had roots growing out of the pot so I just repotted it. Can you tell by looking at your bulb hoe deep it had been planted? It should be buried deeper than most other hippeastrum, but since it is growing and it is temperamental I am reluctant to tell you to change anything.

Good news is it is growing happily, so you have most (if not all) of this bulb's needs met :).

Mine hasn't shown any desire to flower, but it is beautiful as a houseplant with the white stripe down its leaves.

I don't know if this helps. - J

Thank you Jody! Of course this helps because every information helps :-) Mine is only buried half way but I decided to leave it like this to see if it pulls itself further down as some of my Hippis do. If not I can still add more potting mix. It's in a quite big pot because I read that it likes to make offsets. Mine is an offset too (about the size of a golf ball) and the seller mentioned that the motherbulb has ot yet flowered for him... The leaves are really pretty :-))))

Anja

I think I've just about given up on these beauties. I have tried everything I know and read, but all they seem to do is sulk or out right die :-((((

What an amazing looking bloom! I must have it! Does anyone know where i can purchase?

I purchased a H reticulatum from Edens Blooms this past winter. I don't see them on the site now, but I'll bet if you emailed, Aaron & Dove probably still have them available. So far, my bulb is sulking. It definitely has roots. It started to send up a leaf, then stalled out. The bulb is just a little larger than a golf ball.

Béatrice, I looked up this old thread again because here you can find something about the experiences other growers made with this beautiful plant. If you put "Silhouette" in the search engine of gardenweb you will find even more but this seemed to be the best and here we can also see the gorgeous blooms.

Maybe we can write down our expierences here too? At the moment I would only add that it doesn't like cool temperatures. Mine started to rot in fall in an unheated room and is doing much better on a heating pad in a warmer room. It has at least five or six offsets now. The funny thing is that all the offsets grow only on one side of the motherbulb! The upper half of the motherbulb is still above the substrate.

I'm really curious to see what it will do under your growing conditions!

Anja

The seed pod and the seeds of H. reticulatum are very different from other Hippeastrum species.

hi Frank - wow those blooms are amazing! And the seed pods are so beautiful! Thanks for sharing

Frank, thank you for sharing your experiences and your beautiful pictures with us! I really hope that mine will flower someday!

What substrate are you using?

With which Hippeastrum did you cross you H. Silhouette?

H. reticulatum has now been reclassified as Eusarcops reticulata. The Publication

Anja,

i use a peat-based compost mixed with one third pumice.

No record of the male parent on the label of the seedlings. Have to look in my breeding book.

My flower gallery
My flower blog

Eusarcops reticulata - so we have intergeneric hybrids!

Frank,

Thank you so much for sharing your special website and blog with us!!! Your photos are amazing and beautiful to say the least and I for one, will visit your hippeastrum site often!

I look forward to new additions!!

Donna

Greetings Frank,

Your flower gallery and blog are very precious and special gifts.

Many thanks!

Hi Frank, many thanks from me too for sharing your website with us!

Anja

I am joining in to thank you for sharing :) Jody

Hi Frank,

Me 5 :-)))))

Thank you for your comments about my gallery and blog. But both show a big problem of mine: I am not able to focus on one or two plant familys. My plant collection is a real mess, the spanish phrase "de todo un poco" applies very well. So I am doing many things but nothing properly.

As long as you are happy with all your plants... :-)

Frank, you sound exactly me and I can sympathize with "De todo un poco" I actually live my life by that phrase :-)))

that phrase made me smile - that's how I am too :)

Thank you Anja !!!

What a good idea , I'll be happy filling this thread.

Frank, it's my turn to thank you for sharing your culture experience, it will be very useful, it's a real gift!

Now I'm going to browse your photo site, Merci !!!

How spectacular!!!!! Please tell us how you're growing it and where you are.

Mine has been growing very well in the past years, blooming more and more frequently in recent years.