Hi Davide,

It looks like you have them growing outside? If that's the case, it may be sunburn. Mine do the same thing when I place them outside for the summer but as soon as the new leaves grow in, they're perfectly fine and acclimated to the stronger outdoor light.

Warm Regards,

Fred

Hi Fred, thank You for Your reply! :)

All my bulbs are outside but under a porch, so they get sunlight early in the morning till about 11-12 am. This bulb is the only one that showing this problem, maybe it is a little weaker than the others... I put it in full sunlight just to take the pictures, anyhow.

I hope it's sunburn...

Again, thank You! :)

Hi Davide,

I don't have a solution for your problem but am wondering if you've got any pictures of your Red Lions in bloom. It must be quite a sight when just half of them are blooming!!

Donna

Is there any possibility that some large bug or small animal may have urinated on your leaves and caused the burning?? Just a thought.....☺☺

well, judging by the white deposits on the leaves you have a lot of minerals in your water. maybe that's causing the burning on some of the leaves. id wipe them off with a wet cloth and wait and see. it doesn't look like a serious problem, your plants seem healthy and if it was a disease I imagine more than one would have it. just keep an eye on it for a while :)

Thank You everybody for the replies! :)

The white deposits on the leaves are due to a fungicide that I sprayed on them.

Here is a picture of my hippies, it's very difficult to take a photo of all of them together, but this is the best I can make...

What a gorgeous sight!! Are most of these offsets, you didn't buy most of these, or did you??

I'll just bet that each year when these bloom for you, people come by just to look!!

Donna

I bought one bulb, just one, back in 1995. All the others are offsets, that I got year after year ;)

All I can say is Wow!! That's really amazing!!

At some point are you going to start giving a few away or do you still have plenty of room?

I know that these bulbs planted in the ground can reproduce into huge clusters but I've never seen such a collection from one bulb in pot culture!!! What is your secret? Are those plastic or clay pots? You must not be able to give them a cold spell so they bloom at will and still manage to all bloom at the same time!!!! What kind of fertilizer do you use?

☺☺☺☺ ☺!!

Donna

You know, I was a kid when I bought the first bulb (which is, by the way, the one that has those weird spots on the leaves, and that's why I was/am so worried, because it's the oldest one and the one I love the most ;) ), I didn't know anything about hippeastrum, there was no internet, no books, nothing. So I put it in a plastic pot and tried to take care of it in the best way that I could. Then, in winter, I thought I should dig it out of the pot but I forgot to do it... In spring I decided to re-pot it and I realized that the root were not as I expected them to be lol (as You can see, I didn't know anything at all about these bulbs). The next year I saw a leaf coming out from the soil and I thought it was "strange" lol; in fact, it was an offspring ;)

I can tell You that for years I never, ever, fertilized any of the bulbs. I usually pot them using the soil that I had in my garden, nothing special (my grandfather used to take care of a vegetables garden, and he used rabbit and horse excrements; these can be very good for vegetables, indeed, but not for the hippies I guess, too much nitrogen), and every year they kept growing and blooming. I never had a bulb with no flowers.

Since four years now I'm using a liquid fertilizer for bulbs, with medium/high percentage of potassium, something like N-P-K 6-7-10; after blooming I give something that here we call "ox blood", with high percentage of biologic nitrogen, that helps the bulbs to develop big leaves. That's all, I guess, but I don't pay too much attention to fertilization, unfortunately, because it's very difficult for me to fertilize each of the bulbs in a proper way...

I gave away 4 or 5 bulbs, one to my dearest friend who now has 3 offsprings ;) the others unfortunately died because the owners gave them too much water and made the bulbs rot.

That's one of the reasons why I'm not giving away my bulbs very easily lol. Now that they are growing and growing in numbers I'm wondering what I should do, I have plenty of space but they also require a lot of care, especially when I have to re-pot them, so I don't know...

By the way, I've always used plastic pots.

Sorry for writing too much!! lol

Davide,

Thanks for taking the time to answer all my questions, I appreciate it and I'm sure others here find this interesting also.

I guess it's a good thing that you didn't get into hybridizing or you'd really be in trouble!!

Keep up the good work.....Donna

wow - what a collection! love it