How I earned a "free" bulb!

13 years ago

Last weekend I flew to Sacramento for a conference, but was able to start the trip with a visit with the best college roomie ever!! As we were sitting out on her back porch, no doubt drinking wine, I noticed that she had a huge pot of amaryllis. I went over to look at it and found a huge pot of healthy bulbs so crowded that they were growing on top of each other with no place to go.

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When I asked Jean what color they were, she replied "Red and white", and so I thought that they must be a vigorous clump of H. Minerva or maybe H. Vittatum. She said she thought she probably should split them up, but it really hadn't been a priority. The next morning she showed me a cell phone photo that she had taken. This is a photo of that photo (sorry for the poor quality!). Yep...they were H. Papilo. Guess what? I told her it should be a priority and we decided we would tackle this on Monday morning, before the temps hit 100!!

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So, come Monday, dress in grubby garden clothes, we assembled shovels, pots, hand trowels and lots of soil! It was pretty easy to tip the pot over, and the tug-of-war began with her holding the pot and me pulling to separate the clump from the pot that had been its home for 10 years. I did some quick math and thought if a bulb put out 3-4 offsets once it got big enough (after 3-4 years) we could be dealing with a lot of bulbs. I hoped that Jean had enough pots!!

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After a very long time, and only 3 casualties that might make it in the end, we had 66 bulbs. We sorted them in the following group/size:

7 bulbs that would go back in the pot as "mother bulbs". These were about the size of baseballs if not bigger. We did find the original mother bulb in what remained of a plastic pot sunk into the huge pot.

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Then there were the rest. The top row are about the size of racquetballs, and what you would expect if you mail ordered an H. Papilio. All the bulbs under the top row varied in size...from medium to small size. There were even bulbs growing off the underside of the bulbs that had never seen daylight! Those are the white misshapen things.

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And here are the 3 that will need some TLC:

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So, after we got those all potted up, we returned the 7 extra large bulbs to the pot and called Jean's husband out into the yard to help us move it! That was a very heavy pot, but it looks great!!

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Oh, Jean and Jim have very green thumbs. They have a Eureka lemon tree. Jim says it's a freak because it puts out football sized lemons. This photo has not been altered in any way. I made lemonade out of it!

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Jean gave me a medium large bulb to bring back to Texas and I will think of my pal every time I look at it!

Kristi

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Comments (13)

sun_worshiper
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
That is so cool! Thanks for sharing the great photo journal of the process!

My neighbor grows giant lemons like that too - they are really amazing to see.
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Just an update: my bulb has put out 5 new leaves in 2 weeks. I chose the bulb I did because there was lots of new growth sprouting from the middle.

Jean says that the little white misshapen bulbs are starting to sprout and the 3 bulbs that were pretty damaged are perking up and putting out new growth. All the other bulbs are doing great!

When I made lemonade out of that huge lemon there happened to be a seed that had sprouted in the middle of it and that seed is now growing well on my windowsill kitchen. It's got 2 little leaves!!
K
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amaryllisstudygroup
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Wonderful . The first Papilio I planted back in the '80s I put in a 15 inch pot with only the roots in the soil since it is both an epiphyte & a geophyte. It bloomed the first year, but would not bloom again until it filled the pot with offsets which took 5 years. when it did bloom, there were 8 stalks of flowers from 8 mature bulbs with more young bulbs growing up. Tell your friends not to worry if they don't bloom until they feel crowded. Bill
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Great...
Then she'll wish we hadn't reported them all!!
K
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
As a follow-up. Here is the big pot with 7 bulbs, each sending out a scape. I think they must be very happy!

She said that the smaller bulbs are all doing well and some have even put out scapes too.
K
jstropic (10a)
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
This was such a fun story to read. Thanks for the update Kristi!
dondeldux z6b South Shore Massachusetts
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Beautiful!!
fishing_dentist
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Thanks for telling that story about happy gardening! Ihave a clump in the same size, bougt on ebay from a person, whom whas´nt able to handle that anymore. (Germany means in summer bring it out and winter bring it in again) and i am always thinking about putting it in parts. I did gave him a bigger pot in the last year and fertilize it. last autumn it brings one stalk and now i know for sure, it is papilio. Your story forces me, to divide it.
Thanks Kristi!
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
It took HOURS!!
Good luck Frank and post your chapter to this story!
K
fishing_dentist
13 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I would post much more, when it did´nt takes so much time, to post pics!
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
12 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Follow-up:

I saw said roomie a couple of weeks ago. She now has so many Papilio she doesn't know what to do. She said that each and every bulb is thriving and even the 3 that I chopped with the shovel are doing great. She has lots of blooms and guesses she will end up selling most (50+ bulbs) at a garage sale!

The large pot, where we repotted the larger bulbs, has many offsets and each of the large bulbs has put out 1-2 scapes.

K
ApplePie123
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Wow, what a great story!! How is your papilio doing now??and what about those lemon?
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Her husband cut down the lemon tree as it didn't produce very edible fruit and had "killer" thorns. He replaced it with an Improved Meyer Lemon tree.
K