Hello Luke!

Yes you can plant them now. Maintain good humidity 70-80% but not too hot temp. 75-80F is great.

No direct sun until leaf emerge. As seedling grow (2 leaves), give more mild sun.

You can also wait until it has a leaf. Same procedure as above.

There are not very picky at this stage. I waited until mine had 2 leaves, and then procrastinated a little and they still did fine after transplanting.

{{gwi:401681}}

I am not suggesting you to wait too long as I did but just want to mention that they are pretty strong things.

By the way, this is what they look like just 2 days ago. This is fun. :-)

{{gwi:452824}}

Hi Dave, You have some really nice looking babies there. Do you know what, or who, they are? A few years from now, when all our babies start to bloom will be very exciting. I know a few among us have already had gorgeous blooms from their very own crosses. I just can't imagine the excitement from seeing one of your own put out a scape.

Hi Kitty,

There are all Red Lion self cross, and they are 8-month old.

I have other seeds from crossing different amaryllises, but being new last year, I didn't grow them and only tried this set of Red Lion. It is the first set, and so far the only set, of amaryllises that I started from seed.

Being in the cold Michigan, I think they need at least 2 more years to bloom....

Can someone explain exactly how the flotation germination is done? Thanks.

Anna,

You take a cup/bowl of water and put some seed on the water. They will float naturally, and that is it! That simple.

Here are mine when I started them:
{{gwi:401680}}

I also covered mine with another cup, but that is not strictly needed and most people don't do that.
{{gwi:414502}}

Then you just wait wait wait (about 2 weeks to a month) and you will see some sprouts. You can wait until you clearly see one or two leaves as the earlier picture shows. Then you transplant them.

Simple and fun, huh?

I would also like to add this. To help the newly transplanted seedlings in their adjustment from a totally wet condition to a dryer one (ones you pot them up), enclosing them in a clear baggie or ziploc(slightly opened) for a week or two will kinda harden them off.

Winter time here in my growing area brings down the humidity to 40%. The newly transplanted seedlings have a hard time adjusting if I do not enclose them in ziplocs. A lot of them would have their leaves dry out in a day or two if I don't do this at this time of the year.

Spring/Summer gives out the best germination results for me. Of course, the germination rate also depends on the parents of the cross. Fertile and robust parents almost always bring out robust seedlings.

The reason I am really interested is that my beautiful Supreme Garden (new last year from Royal Colors) rotted outside over the summer (it had bloomed so beautifully ((sniffle))), but it's last scape did produce a seed pod, which I'd never done or seen before. I guess it will be eons before a klister like that will be reproduced, but, fun nevertheless to see what happens. I am a seed addict - winter sowing is what really excites me! Thanks everyone!

Thanks Mariava for mentioning about enclosing in clear baggy. Yes, I do that. Sometimes I used plastic cover (like those they package doughnut or rotiserrie chicken). As Mariava mentioned, it doesn't have to be air tight. Some circulation is good.

I also completely watered the soil so it is quite wet (but drained) when I transplant. I figure the sprouts are just out of water, so it is used to the wet condition. And then both the sprouts and the soil dry naturally together.

Anna, did you hand-pollinate your amaryllises? You might want to try that next year to see if they produce seed pods.

Dave - no - the pod occurred without my conscious assistance - I was excited to see it form, mature, split, then all those lovely paper packages spilled out - full of promise (I hope!) I fear getting addicted to hand-pollinating - I get easily addicted with anything horticultural. The pizza delivery guy in spring wondered if I had a nursery - soooo many seedlings via winter-sowing. Hmm, maybe I'll try one or two. Oh no - what have I said?

Anna, I see what you mean now. Earlier I misread and thought your amaryllis rotted without giving you a pod.

If you have different kinds of amaryllises (even if just two kinds), you should try hand crossing them. I have 5 last year and got so many combinations.

Now I think that will start a new addiction. ;-)

Do I have different kinds of amaryllises (amarylli?) ?? Oh no, only about 30 sleeping in the basement and 30 upstairs, new this year - that's all.

yoohoo! I guess we expect lots of pictures next year, right? :-)

I would like to thank everyone for their advice on growing these seeds. This morning I counted over 70 littles leaves in my greenhouse so things are working well.

I actually tried 3 ways of propagating them, I did the flotation and out of the 100 odd seeds in there only about 8 never got roots.

I also planted some in seedling trays and put them in a zip lock bag. success rate here is alot lower but i still have a time to see if they grow.

The least successful method was simply putting them in a seedling tray in a shaded area. only a few have propagated.

I chose a few different methods as I am currently studying horticulture and really needed to see what would work best.

Knowing that the flotation method gave the seeds the best start i can't wait to get more seeds (am going agapanthus hunting soon). might have to check the neighbours and see if i can find any pods lying around. i have another 100 odd papillio butterfly seeds floating at the moment so am looking forward to getting them growing.