After two or three stalks have finished blooming, it will grow leaves for a while to build up it's strength for next spring's bloom.

While it grows leaves, water it thoroughly when the top centimeter of compost is dry, feed regularly with your favorite houseplant fertilizer, and give it lots of light--direct morning sun, or filtered south or west sun is good. Cut off old, yellow leaves as needed, but try not to cut green leaves, since that will reduce flowering next spring. If the leaves get unmanageably long, that means that the plant isn't getting enough sun. Putting it out in the summer is of great benefit, and may cause it to need transplanting! If it is really happy, it may produce one or two baby bulbs at the base, which will show narrow leaves above ground, also. These offsets should be allowed to grow for two years before you try to separate them from the mother, and will take another year or three to bloom.

Sometime around January or February, many of the leaves will turn yellow. and growth of new ones will slow. Water less often then, allowing the compost to get almost completely dry before soaking it again. This is when it forms flower buds! After 4-8 weeks, return to normal watering, and flower buds should show a few weeks later.

When the bulb nearly fills the pot, It is time to replant into a pot 8-12 cm bigger than the old one, using a fast-draining compost. Always leave the neck and a little bit of the "shoulder" of the bulb showing. The best time to transplant is just before it blooms.

Hope all this helps!

Thank you so so much and "Wow - such a lot of info"..... seems like a tricky plant to keep. You are obviously an experienced gardener. I do well growing seeds into plants and planting out / looking after garden etc - but never know what to do with indoor plants..... I think and if you agree, I will put the plant outside in the sunshine during the day and bring it at early evening - and re-pot to a bigger pot once it has finished flowering. Is this the right thing to do?

Don't panic! It's not that tricky, you just can't treat it like the stereotypical neglected cast iron plant in the Victorian parlor. Usually, once you get used to caring for plants, it becomes easy and automatic.

Plants rarely do well being moved back and forth every day--it's better to find a good spot for them, and leave them there, moving them no more often than you have to. I would wait to repot until it's dormant, like I said.

Good luck!

Thanks so much - you are a wiz at the ol' English language tooo..... proper stuff eh! (joke!)

Just remember that "In America, we haven't spoken it for years!"