Amaranthus cruentus, Joseph's coat, love lies bleeding

I could not help but bring a most beautiful plant picture for my friends to see.  This is a plant that is in the Love Lies Bleeding category.  Amaranthus actually.  Amaranthus cruentus – variety – Joseph’s coat.  It is incredible and evidently has some specific growing requirements.  This was a little seed package that my Daughter had purchased for us to plant in the garden.  I looked at the name of it and remembered how awful the variety of Amaranthus grew, the one with the long strands of weirdo flowers, reddish in colour grew, and were horribly affected by stinkin’ black aphids, back on the coast.  Hated that plant back then, but boy, what an aphid attracter, so could be deemed good I guess, let them suck the life out of that plant and maybe they would not suck dry the nasturtiums, smiling.  Anyways, when I saw the package I poo pooed it and put in on the planter outside, on a part where rain would not get it.  Guess Daughter opened it up and looked at the seed and the seeds were so tiny, she got scared away and closed it back up.  She is not the biggest of gardeners, loves the gardens, but for the most part leaves seeding to me.  Although she certainly does have a hand in taking wonderful care of what is grown and ensuring we pull out the beautiful King Humbert canna lilies and get them planted in.  Yes, so, along comes later summer and we see these most beautiful plants growing, close to where the seed package had been put down.  No clue what the plants might be, kind of reminded me of coleus, the beautiful dark mahogany/maroon colours.  I love the foliage of coleus.   What on earth could they be?  Don’t know, like how they are surrounding the big pot, but geeze, what plant we got growing here?  Leave it be, see what comes if it flowers or not.  Later summer comes and I look at the plant, well, rock my socks.  At the leaf axis there appears to be something of a burgundy (that is what colour I will call it, but still, maybe magenta) bud, no frick frack...that bug reminds me of one of the flower buds that grow so long on that plant I hated, Love Lies Bleeding.  Looking closer, oh for surely it must be in the family, same kind of fuzzy looking insignificant flower bud.  But let it be.  Oh it is so beautiful.  So along comes early fall, I would say beginning of September.  Look at one of the plants, it is very wilted.  Look at the plant even closer.  Guess what!!  It is COVERED and I mean covered (on the underside of leaves and along stems), with those frickin’ black aphids.  Geeze.  Here we go.  Gone from affecting some branches of the black elderberry tree to overtaking this poor and beautiful plant.  So, out goes the plant that is dying, into a garbage bag and into the burn pile.  The other group of the beautiful plants remained lovely as lovely could be, until a day or so ago, when we had a frost that killed only some of the plants.   That amaranthus was affected.  Now I read it is propagated by seed.  Don’t know, read and read, but can’t see if it is a hybrid, so I will go today and grab seed and dry it.  (I have to laugh here, my Husband asked me what book I am writing now, funny, no book, Husband, just a post about a flower that began as something short).  Anyways, yes, so gotta grab those flower thingies and dry and gather seed and see what comes.  I should do a search more and find out if they are hybrid or not, if so, useless to dry seed. I should do that thing.  Yep, should do that thing.  Now, where was I, before I was so rudely interrupted....right, the story.

Kind of lost my train of thought, I’ll try to get back on course.  Well, guess there is no course, cause my ramblin’ is done, just a wish for a wonderful day to us all, CynthiaM.

So this is what the plant looked like, wish I had used my actual camera, not blackberry, but the picture is pretty OK.  Amaranthus cruentus, Joseph’s coat

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The actual picture that I took off the internet, of someone that must have grown them as well, smiling.

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You should see them flowering. We move them through the warehouse I work at, and they are quite something.

What are they called? Are these the plants that have purple flowers and when they go to seed they just pop out. If you try taking seeds off

them the bag has to "not" touch them and be right over the seeds, they're like they are alive bouncing around into the bag. I got some seeds

last year, but have no idea what they are called. Really look like the second picture. Any ideas??

Lady Leghorn, not sure what you are asking, the plant is called "loves lie bleeding", it is the variety called Joseph's coat, latin amaranthus cruentus. Can't help you cause I don't understand the question that you don't understand. I am going to gather seed today, I will ensure that I hang the brown bag below, that is awesome for drying seed anyways, I use brown bags for this, then you can just shake many up, and the seeds release and are in bag, then the seed can be winnowed from the chaf. Except, like the night scented stock, which are long and thing seed pods and I use a heavy rolling pin to flatten them and then the seeds are released, and then winnowed too. Which reminds me, my seeds of that stock should be dry, time for some roller pinning. Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Cynthia, What I was asking I guess is the name of this plant. But also IF these plants pop the seeds off, when seed collecting time comes up.

The plant I was talking about looked very much liked these, but when collecting seeds if you even gently touched the plant seeds would go flying

off the plant. Almost like they had a life of their own. When I was collecting them I had to keep the bag from touching them, then put it right

over the seed pods completely, otherwise they popped off in all directions.

They were the oddest seeds to collect.

Amaranthus cruentus makes a striking statement in beds or borders. Growing to 6 feet in height, it bears somewhat fuzzy-looking spires of purplish red flowers in summer, followed by seed heads that can be red, purple, or yellow. It is native to tropical regions of North and South America, and is one of three Amaranthus species cultivated for their grain. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Darn, that's not what the ones I thought they were. Thanks anyway.

lady leghorn wrote:Cynthia,  What I was asking I guess is the name of this plant.  But also IF these plants pop the seeds off, when seed collecting time comes up.

The plant I was talking about looked very much liked these, but when collecting seeds if you even gently touched the plant seeds would go flying

off the plant. Almost like they had a life of their own.  When I was collecting them I had to keep the bag from touching them, then put it right

over the seed pods completely, otherwise they popped off in all directions.

They were the oddest seeds to collect.

Oh sorry. There are so many plants that have these kind of seed pods. You touch them, they basically burst and seeds fly everywhere!! Some are so delicate it is hard to collect, unless you put a bag or something around the pod. Impatiens varieties come to mind. Especially the impatiens glandulafera or impatiens capensis. They are so cool. If you touch the pod, it blows up, the pod then kind of curls up and it just looks cool. They are difficult to gather, cause you have to be so gentle.

The amaranthus that I am speaking about in this post does not get the long droopy flowers, the flower remains in a tight cluster at the basis of the leaf axis, hardly even noticeable unless you really look. Was too busy to gather seed yesterday, but today, shall certainly be doing that thing. I was washing chicken butts. Gotta get that done before the winter comes, a few of the feathered bums just get a little bit ichy now and then. Think snowballs stuck on feathers, but poopballs. Thank my lucky stars it is not a huge job, I just don't like any visual of any crap on butts. Oh well. It was a beautiful warm day and the birds really do enjoy when I am sitting on a bucket outside in the sun and they are sitting on my lap when I blowdry their wet rear ends. Yep, that was the highlight of my day. Did I mention that I have been MITE FREE since last fall. Something good has happened here and we are MITE and LOUSE free.....100%. Not this spring, not this summer and not this fall, yahoooooo!! Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.

Yey, Clean bums, lol. Bet they did enjoy the attention. Does make you feel better to get jobs like that done.




Back to the flowers, are your's purple? I think they might come in different colours, but I have only seen the purple. The seeds I collected off

the plants really acted like they weren't even part of the plant, like they had a mind of their own. Just brushed the plant and away some of them

went. Until I realized I had to put the bag carefully right over the seed heads. Was actually quite funny. Once they were in the paper bag and

bumped in there, they were bouncing around on their own. Sounded really weird. Collecting seeds is a real adventure.  

I think you may be talking about impatiens glandulafera, those flowers I would call pink though, not purple, but there certainly could be many different varieties and purple certainly could be one colour. Please go to a thread that I have created, wanted to do this before, but you have spurred me.....have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.

Very interested to know what you did to become mite free.

SucellusFarms wrote:Very interested to know what you did to become mite free.

Absolutely and 100% sure it was the use of frontline and ivermectin pour on medication. There are threads on the use of these kinds of products and it absolutely and 100% works. As I said, mite free since last fall, one year ago, treated that fall. Treated again in spring, as ongoing, not necessarily needed, but for prevention. And have not seen one single louse or mite. And I had a horrible horrible infestation last fall. and I have talked immensely about it. There are threads, search, this is very important. I only use ivermectin pour on for cattle (becuase it is much more easier to get) .5 cc per bird on the neck, once in the fall, once in the spring. Check out threads, so interesting, so very interesting.....have an awesome day, CynthiaM.