Pollenating my Fragrant Hippeastrum ???

steven hart hartsentwine.australia@gmail.com
Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:11:30 PDT
Hi everyone
Sometimes the worst catastrophes can give the greatest gifts !

I just came back from Frazer Island & a gate was left open while i was away
for a week & the goats had a little holiday in paradise too.

For the first time ever they ate everything except my Colchicums, they must
taste horrible haha............ I have completely lost my whole ameracrinum
collection roots and all :-(  that's pretty devastating in fact after
watching for signs of life in my worsleyas which were eaten & buried under
inches of scuffed broken ground, i shed a tear or two, o what fun they had
at my expense. I lost a whole bunch of hippie seeds that were coming on
amongst other things, so i'm pretty disappointed. But what is ok is already
shooting with some rain, blood & bone & a nightly watering. Some of the
crinum brisbanicums are 12 inches tall already & its only been a week since
they were reduced to half an inch. I hope it hasn't interrupted the
flowering cycle this year.

Anyway i got off track there, the point of my loss was, pollen, i was so
upset by the loss of every hippeastrum seed & flower i've waited all year
for, i went to my little local country town & they had some lovely
hippeastrums for sale. To help with my psychological recovery from the
devastating event, i bought 5 beautiful budding & flowering hippieastrums.
Seeing the happy side of things, it must have been meant to be, because i
would never have ordinarily bought them otherwise. They were $10 each but
when one of them flowered it was "devinely fragrant" that's right a fragrant
hippeastrum. I couldn't believe it !!!!!!!  I never knew you could get a
fragrant hippeastrum. I smelled it again & again with disbelief, i even
thought it must be a trick in the wind from some native flowering in the
forest, but no it was real after a few days of double & triple checking,
then i quarantined it & yep its beautifully perfumed with a perfect ballance
of fragrances. It looks similar to apple blossom, pastel pink across the top
half & more white below with a heavy lime green throat. I have it in the
house now & it has filled the house with a subtle fragrance of lemon sherbet
mixed with the faintest of frangipanni jasmine. I am also a perfumer so i
know my fragrances very well, it wasn't just a guess. The fragrance seems to
weaken at different times of day but is lovely morning & afternoon. Its
6.38pm now & it is still wafting gently through the house. Flowers 1 to 3
days old have the strongest perfume.

I wish i had discovered this when i was a fragrant garden specialist, well o
my goodness...........I'm so delighted, its like a dream come true !

Does any one else have more knowledge about any other fragrant hippeastrums
??? or seeds to share ??? I would love to concentrates some time toward
collecting others to continue experimenting with cross pollination for
stronger or different perfumes ??? That's my new quest for this year !!!

I was just reading Jim Shields blog on pollination storage & it is very well
& simply described if any one needs to know the inns & outs of it.

Fingers crossed everyone !
Happy Gardening :-)
Steven Hart Esk Queensland Australia



More information about the pbs mailing list