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

Your range and cabinets look great together. BTW, I sometimes rotate a grate rather than fitting it in. Basically it will raise the grate and therefore the pan a bit further above the flame of the burners. This is useful on the simmer burner when set on low, for the lowest possible heat, and also on one of the bigger burners when set on high, it will prevent the flames from 'licking' the sides of the pan if the pan is raised slightly. Especially a medium sided pan bottom. Sometimes I'll do this if I'm in a hurry to boil water for tea, if the pan is raised the flames stay on the bottom and I think it boils faster than having the flames cascade out the sides. Not really necessary with bigger pans of course. Also I would check out if the lower oven gliding rack will extend all the way without hitting the oven door. And at least with my oven, the bottom of the floor (removing the floor and turning it over) had a 'baffle' (like a box welded to it) that was painted and it took longer than one 'burn off' before the paint was sufficiently burnt off.

I agree with you, Hippizep. IMHO it boils down to the conclusion, if the segments are narrow and not conspicuous colored, then they should either compose a flower of a spectacular shape (like "Butterfly" or "Cybister") or at least be frilly. As it can be observed in many modern hybrids advertized on EBAY, allegedly proffered by the Komoryia Nursery

As this one opens out, it looks more and more like its Night Star parent. The colour looks different here from the earlier picture is it is on a dull drizzly late afternoon as opposed to the earlier bright morning sunlight. I’ve moved a bunch of cybisters and crosses to our Community Garden and named the hillside ‘Cybister Hill’