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Bold and Beautiful!
Amaryllis are one of the easiest plants to look after providing the most graceful and surprisingly large flowers for very little work. If you haven’t been given one for Christmas go out and get one now as they will probably be reduced. Quite often they come boxed with a bag of compost and a plastic pot and within days of planting it starts to grow. There are two at the moment on my windowsill, one being just a shoot and the other ‘Jewel’ is in full flower with spikes almost 3ft tall. I am a little saddened as ‘Jewel’ is claimed to be scented and I cannot smell anything as yet, but it’s crisp white double flowers with a lime green and rust throat can only be compared in beauty to a lily. There are two ways in which you can grow Amaryllis dependant on whether you wish to control their flowering ritual. I personally prefer to treat them as a houseplant all year round allowing the leaves to get larger and feeding it after flowering. This results in the bulb flowering when it feels like it and to me the surprise of seeing a bud appearing is satisfying. Others prefer to allow them to go dormant after flowering by reducing water until the leaves die back, bringing them back to life when they want them to flower for Christmas. Whatever your choice, you cannot find a more easy and pleasing plant to sit on your windowsill or even to give to the person that has a reputation for killing anything green.