Eucharis amazonica and blooming.

rdjenkins rdjenkins@bellsouth.net
Sun, 20 Aug 2006 08:23:25 PDT
I experimented this year with mine. They are large enough to bloom (they really aren't large bulbs at maturity anyhow). This I know because they flowered last year.

I get repeated blooming by letting them go to the dry side for a period of time, maybe a mont, and during that time I give them water without fertilizer. Than, I put them back on full watering (they're rain forest in origin so they like good moisture levels, just not too wet or you get oedema in the foliage) with a full strength liquid fertilizer with "quarter-strength" thereafter. This will usually be followed posthaste with flowering.

Now to the experimental part. This year I read that it was a mistaken belief to think that E. amazonica needed the wet-dry treatment to flower. The writer said that if temps were in the suitable range (80s F) they would flower in response to that alone and didn't need to be restricted nutritionally.

So I decided to try that. And they haven't flowered once. AFAIK, form my own experience, the wet-dry-hungry treatment followed by food and good moisture usually results in blooming! That was what I did and got good results and when I did the opposite, nothing. I won't be doing that again!

For what it's worth.

Robert.


More information about the pbs mailing list