A cheerful sight

The garden is sodden today and the view from the window a grey one but on the windowsill is this cheerful amaryllis, or hippeastrum if you want to be more correct. It has two flowers with two more to come. Ideally, of course, you want a tall, straight stem with four flowers out at once. The wonder of this particular plant is that the pot spent the entire winter in a cold greenhouse, exposed to frost.

I've grown lots of different forms of this plant and I'm always amazed that such extraordinary blooms come from a dull, brown bulb. Such wonderful colours and stripes! Those crystalline petals that hardly look real! Just what is needed on an English summer's day.