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Amaryllis/Hippeastrum

What to do next with chipped bulbs?

17 years ago

I purchased a couple of the Wally World special Amaryllis bulbs and sliced and diced them a week ago. This is the first time I've ever cut a bulb up to get new ones. I looked at them the other day and noticed at least one had a considerable amount of vegetative growth on it. I know this is from the food reserves in the bulb and not from the formation of a new bulb. It has only been a week. What do I do with these ones? Do I pot them up or just leave them in with the rest of the ones that aren't doing this?

Thanks

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Comments (6)

mariava7
17 years ago
Vegetative growth? Please clarify or should I say more info please. A pic would be great too if you have the time.
plant_guy
17 years ago
Pictures please!

Plant_Guy

Here is a link that might be useful: My Amaryllis Page
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fairview
Original Author
17 years ago
I tried taking a picture but because I have a rather inexpensive digital (cheap) camera the quality of the pic is extremely poor. I cut the bulbs into 8 sections. The growth/shoot is coming up from what would have been the center layers of the bulb had I not cut it apart. I am thinking perhaps I cut it really off center and this section received more than it's fair share of the middle part of the bulb. At least it looks that way. Thanks
patwood
17 years ago
By now you should be able to pot up the cut up bulbs. Any damage from the slicing should have healed over. When I did this, I put just the bottom 1/4 or so of the bulb in soil and watered sparingly but enough to promote root growth (i.e., I only watered when the top of the soil started to dry out). Some of the bulb chips produced more than one new bulb (i.e., a leaf emerged from more than just the center); some withered and died.

I only did this with smallish (1" diameter) bulbs for fear of losing a bloomer, but I got about 6 or 7 separate plants from each out of the process. They're small now, but growing fast. I think next time I may only go for 4 sections if I divvy up a small bulb.
elizabeth_jb
17 years ago
I would think that one of the problems that might occur from slicing a forced bulb is that you may have a pre-formed bud that will abort and die, thus possibly having a problem with decay and rot. Just a thought, and nothing that I have ever really experimented to try.

Certainly, it sounds as though the green growth may be coming from the mother bulb itself rather than a new bulb that has formed. If that is the case, that particular section will form a bigger bulb faster than the rest of them.

Fun, isn't it?
patwood
17 years ago
Well, I didn't slice actively growing bulbs, and you can always wait until a bulb goes dormant or force dormancy before splitting it up. Even so, if there was a bud, it would be in the center, and since you slice through the center, it would end up in pieces on the outside of the slices and probably just dry up (or it could be removed from the slices if it were noticeable). I may try slicing up a growing bulb to see if the new bulbs form faster afterwards.

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