November gardening tips: Pot up amaryllis

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and type or copy and paste the name into the search. Plants are

delivered in sturdy boxes in a matter of days from one of the finest

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The shocking amaryllis, king of winter pot plants, is really the hippeastrum, dull though it sounds. These big, dry bulbs, dormant for weeks, are planted now. Fill a jam jar with water and place the bulb on top overnight so that the base absorbs water. Then plant the bulb in a pot just bigger than itself of loam-based compost, leaving a third of the bulb standing proud. Place it in a warm room in a north light and watch it go. The prodigious rise of the flower stalk should be accompanied by a perform- ance of Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra.