Ireturned from three weeks in Italy to find the seasons had changed. Not outside, so much – the wet, warm autumn meant many of the trees were green and in the garden my roses were still in bloom, the lawn pointedly long (mowing it before I left was one of many things on the to-do list that remained unticked). Rather, we returned to a new supermarket season: mince pies and Toblerone and advent calendars were all over the place. This filled me with light despair. But it’s an ill wind, etc, so seasonal shuffling on the aisles means benefits elsewhere – namely, bargain amaryllis bulbs on the shelves. My grandfather was always one for giving amaryllis (or as they’re properly known, hippeastrum) bulbs to his more grownup grandchildren to plant at Christmas. I was the second-youngest and never received one, which may be why I’ve become such an addict over the past few years. These jumbo bulbs – which often have price tags to match – bide their time in gravel and grass as autumn shifts into winter, only to explode in a riot of colour and fanfare during the shortest days. There’s something fantastically showy about them, bordering on naff, actually. Huge, trumpety flowers; stems so long it’s recommended you ground them in a vessel tall and large enough to prevent them toppling over; pendulous stamen; wild stripes of colour. In the bleak emptiness after New Year’s Day you couldn’t wish for a bigger statement. When I spy them in the supermarket – often, annoyingly, with their own little plastic pots and soil and whatnot, which usually wind up on Olio – I tend to stockpile at least three. A lone hippeastrum is a fine thing; multiples of them are glorious. Hippeastrum bulbs are pretty straightforward to operate: fill a vase or “long tom” pot (a taller, thinner plant pot) with pea gravel and nestle the bulb (so the pointy bit is facing out) with the top two-thirds above the surface. They can rot quite easily, especially if they don’t get enough light, so place them somewhere warm and sunny indoors. They don’t need much watering until the leaves appear, then increase it. An alien-like flower stem will appear, and when it does, keep turning the pot to keep it straight. As for varieties, I’ve been a fan of ‘Apple Blossom’ for years – the soft pink goes well in the living room – but there are stripes and ruffles and delicately edged petals galore if you stray beyond the supermarket shelf and into mail-order catalogues. ‘Picotee’ is a good, interesting option for the eternally hard-to-buy-for; ‘Nymph’ has an excellent ruffle and ‘Benfica’ serves proper Christmassy scarlet. And for a bit of drama in grey January, I’ve ordered ‘Sumatra’, which has dark orange pointed petals.