Amaryllis

Hi Babsal,Amaryllis are mainly indoor plants and if you plant it outside the frosts in the winter will kill it for sure.What you need to do is to give it a feed with something like a Tomato fertiliser and then gradually stop watering the plant altogether.

The leaves should gradually die off and the bulb can then be put somewhere cool so that it can have a rest for a few months.You can then restart it into growth by increasing the watering until you see a new flower spike form.The flower should come before the leaves and this is where you can feed it again when the flower is at it's best and then carry on until the flower spike has died off.The leaves will probably put in an appearence at some time,but for some people they seem to get the leaves and no flower.

If you buy them as potted plants from the garden centre they will most certainly have the flower spike already there.

If you want seeds from the plant then you need to gently take off one of the pollen stalks and wipe the pollen over the little bit that opens like a start shape.If it has worked there will be a swelling behind where the flower dies and after you have gently cut off the withered flower leaving the swelling behind the pod will carry on swelling until it eventually dries slightly and then splits open.The seeds inside will be like papery ash and then these can be sown in a tray of potting compost,watered and then put somewhere warm like an airing cupboard where they should start to shoot after a couple of weeks.Take them from the airing cupboard and put them somewhere in a light place and keep them growing on.Eventually after three or four years you will have bulbs that you can enjoy or give away to friends and family,but if this seems too much like hard work you can just keep to your original bulb...

I sometimes put the plants out in the sunshine and bring them in at night. they 'enjoy' the fresh air.