I Have some friends that had a landscape designer add haemanthus to their shade garden..,planted deep and amongst Azaelea and camellia they were not blooming and frankly in decline. I shared with them we could easily correct, these are great bulbs for So.Cal. In removing them to redo the beds I found they are very prolific. I was following roots for several feet with many offsets along the way. We found the original invoice, they had 3 beds with 7 bulbs per bed. I removed 65 bulbs. Replanting now Iin 3 seperate areas around the house.
Planting the bulbs properly and in slightly raised fast draining mix has made all the difference. See below.
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Mike 8FE7EFE3-F7C9-4BE9-9BA7-46ADB2018EF0.jpg635D118A-FCBC-4A1E-838E-2955DD0537E6.jpg
San Diego
Coastal
I find these almost indestructible as frost free greenhouse plants here in SE UK. (slugs allowing) Are their any more showy plants; maybe hybrids, that give more colour/flower size. I grow and flower H. sanguineus ok as pot plants but not tried crossing. Rarely see the other species available.
There are crosses between Haemanthus coccineus and albiflos. I was given a bulb but it is not yet of flowering size. The are pink flowered. So it is worthwhile trying to produce hybrids if you have red flowering species.
Uli
A few species of amaryllid are produced on a commercial scale in either southern Africa or the far east and sold in Europe - they do come up on EPay and nursery websites specialising in plants, especially bulbs/corms/tubers, that are not run-of-the-mill, with mass appeal.
They are mostly slow or very slow-growing and/or very slow to offset, if they do so at all, so are never cheap, H. albiflos being the only exception as it is so common as a cast-iron houseplant and offsets reasonably freely - plants can be had via EPay for £2 or so. Seeds are also ephemeral and generally put out a root PDQ - see Crinum for similar - also an amaryllid.
Rareplants UK offer various species from time to time, at eye-watering prices in the main.
It is interesting that you reliably flower H. sanguineus, is it is supposed to be an unreliable/erratic flowerer in cultivation (I do not grow it, but received wisdom from G Duncan in print).
There are a small number of different forms of H. albiflors - different leaf forms, more or less bristles on the leaves, and there are also a couple of variegated forms that command pretty horrible prices if you can find them.
For instance -
Haemanthus (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354367391930?hash=item5281f148ba:g:eOEAAOSwfvZjYNgj&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoCI5Wr%2FQ55MGdh2MZ1oq7CB%2F3ITM42Qw6pmYAo56qEK%2FPmuAPLSLNQcOsKr7IEHJM6a39dAyfUoXU7L3JNKwFGBklrxG79T4QfQPcyyiPtQn3kXwpX6QAydT%2BHlHZUs0F4bYias3I5DMTU370bCb321bmLLLb9EIgCyYjRj0e8CVFzBx1LWuEGXZ20JEkv2ogZcZixva5W0hXWVWCeeE%2F%2Bk%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8yRjZ-QYQ)
Quote from: Mike Lowitz on November 14, 2022, 01:49:57 PMI Have some friends that had a landscape designer add haemanthus to their shade garden..,planted deep and amongst Azaelea and camellia they were not blooming and frankly in decline. I shared with them we could easily correct, these are great bulbs for So.Cal. In removing them to redo the beds I found they are very prolific. I was following roots for several feet with many offsets along the way. We found the original invoice, they had 3 beds with 7 bulbs per bed. I removed 65 bulbs. Replanting now Iin 3 seperate areas around the house.
Planting the bulbs properly and in slightly raised fast draining mix has made all the difference. See below.
I've never seen a designer use this en masse but I like the idea for dry shade!
Quote from: OrchardB on November 16, 2022, 02:26:05 AMI find these almost indestructible as frost free greenhouse plants here in SE UK. (slugs allowing) Are their any more showy plants; maybe hybrids, that give more colour/flower size. I grow and flower H. sanguineus ok as pot plants but not tried crossing. Rarely see the other species available.
Himalayan Gardens have Haemanthus humilis this year https://www.himalayangardens.com/haemanthus