This is one of a pair of boxed potted hippeastrums that my son snagged from the shop where he worked last winter. Obviously this stock had been bought in for Christmas but hadn’t sold so he got them free. One was red and one was pink … but I didn’t label the pots so I don’t know which one this is … and I won’t find out until it flowers!

The pink one did produce a flower stem but it was a bit of a feeble affair. The red one produced a bud which died so I removed it.

Both hippeastrums came already potted in green pots but the soil was dust dry and the pots had no holes in them. I didn’t discover the lack of holes until after I’d liberally watered the poor plants so they had to stay put. I had to water them VERY carefully over the past year.

When I received this hippeastrum, in January 2007, it was very dry, rather shrunken and pale with a bud already emerging from the neck of the bulb. Now, after a year’s growth, the bulb has bulked up very well, the rootball is solid and, not visible in the photo but present, is the tip of the first leaf of this year’s growth.

Now the hippeastrum is snugly settled into its new pot (about a 7") in a mixture of potting compost and JI No 1. I’ve watered it and put it back on the windowsill it’s been living on for the last year. It’s south facing and the sun is warm so hopefully it should start growing away quickly, once those roots get out into the rich fresh soil.