MUST HAVE plants
Spectacular, trumpet-shaped blooms and gorgeous style and colour in winter, Sue Fisher praises these beautiful plants
Better known as amaryllis, hippeastrum are superb and spectacularly flamboyant flowering bulbs for warm, well-lit spots under cover. Easy to grow and super-fast, hippeastrum can bloom in as little as six to eight weeks from planting, producing a cluster of enormous, showy, trumpet-shaped blooms on a sturdy stem around 45-60cm high. Perfect for chasing away the winter blues and ideal as gifts for almost anyone, their speedy growth and bright colours are particularly fascinating for children and beneficial for anyone housebound. The blooms last for many weeks and, with the right care, bulbs reflower in future years too.
Hippeastrum are frost-tender bulbs that originate from South America, but are not to be confused with the hardy, bubble gum-pink Amaryllis belladonna (which also comes from an entirely different continent). There are around 70 hippeastrum species, though most are scarce in cultivation or challenging in their growing needs. It is the extensive hybridisation that has taken place worldwide, mostly during the last few decades, which has given us the many bewitchingly handsome and robust hybrids that are so popular today. The colour range is simply stunning: reds, pinks, oranges, white and green, often with striped, bicoloured or picotee petals. Cybister or spider types are newer and their petals are slender and swept back. The largest hippeastrum flowers exceed 18cm in diameter with several blooms on one stem, while smaller-flowered types produce a greater number of modest-sized blooms per stem. Growing amaryllis singly in pots is the usual method, but if you have space by a large window, in a heated porch or in a conservatory, go large and plant several bulbs in one big, sturdy pot! Or grow them individually but combine in a group, mixed with other houseplants.
You get what you pay for with hippeastrum. Top-sized bulbs are worth the outlay; they give more flowers and at least two flowering stems per bulb. Be cautious with those sold in gift boxes complete with pot and compost. These bulbs may be tiny by comparison and produce fewer, smaller flowers. So be that troublesome custom
