Amaryllis are full to bursting with glorious surprise and, this year, these bulbous beauties have really outdone themselves; or so it seems.

So simple to grow — one bulb per 10-inch clay pot or about six to eight inches apart in partial garden shade — they generally bloom from mid-March to the end of April. But this time round, they decided to show their faces as early as February and seem set to continue throughout May as well.

Not at all fussy about soil, as long as it is well-drained, their stately flowers, held proudly on top of thick stems up to 12 inches tall, can be single or double and in any shade from clear red, pink and peach through to innocent white.

Unlike many other bulbs, they are perfectly happy to be left in the soil all year round and will multiply their number in thanks.

Find a spot for a few in your garden — you won’t regret it.

With temperatures set to soar, sow these plants and vegetables so they can establish themselves before the heat seriously kicks in and slows them down

SEED SOWING SUGGESTIONS FOR THIS MONTH

The flower garden: With temperatures set to soar, the sooner you can sow the following the better chance they have of establishing themselves before the heat seriously kicks in and slows them down. Blazing orange cosmos, and sulphur yellow ones too, enjoy summer to the full and can be sown, in prepared soil, right where they are to bloom, or be started off in seed trays/pots for transplanting, in the relative evening cool, in to their selected growing spots. Then there are those increasingly popular, heat-loving zinnias which are a delight to the eye and to the bees and butterflies who adore them just as much, if not more, than we humans do. Dwarf zinnias, medium height zinnias, tall zinnias, in fire engine red, dazzling orange, sunshine gold, candy floss pink, crimson, pure white and a surprisingly beautiful shade of green, are a summer gardener’s and florist’s delight, and do equally well in the border or in pots/containers. Pinching out their central growing shoots when they are four to six inches tall encourages them to bush out and to absolutely smother themselves in stunning blooms. Celosia and cockscomb, both members of the Amaranthus family, are additional hot weather delights; as are French marigolds, tagetes, gompherena, annual chrysanthemums, gazania, rudbeckia, portulaca, gerbera and tithonia. You cannot go wrong by sowing more sunflowers this month too. Also, involving children in ‘the tallest sunflower’ competition is a great way of encouraging youngsters to take up gardening as a hobby and, for the dedicated few, even as a career. Good old fashioned petunias — the smaller flowered, much tougher, ancestors of the larger modern hybrids — are another summer staple for beds and borders, pots and hanging baskets and, if grown in a spot away from the midday sun, they can flower for weeks on end.

In the vegetable patch: You can sow shade-grown lettuce, endive, radicchio, mesclun and special cut-and-come-again salad leaf mixes, which are summer salad must haves. As are French radish and crispy-crunchy mooli. Sow more chillies, capsicums and pimentos to extend the harvesting period, and the same goes for cucumbers and aubergines too. Tomatoes, from seed sown earlier in the year, should be producing, or about to produce now. But do add some very heat-tolerant cherry tomatoes to your collection as these tend to endure extreme heat waves more than the other kinds. And, if you can get hold of the seeds, give pink, yellow and black cherry tomatoes a try because not only are they exceptionally sweet, they are also very ornamental. Cucamelons — the vine-like cucumbers and bear bunches of grape-sized fruit resembling miniature watermelons with the taste of a limey cucumber — are an excellent choice now, as are okra, fenugreek, karelas, seasonal varieties of cabbage and cauliflower. You should also be brave and experiment by sowing just a few, perhaps four or six, courgette/zucchini seeds in partial shade to see if they do manage to fruit. Climbing beans and bush beans can be sown somewhere they benefit from morning only sunshine while chickpeas — and lots of them, please — will take all the sun they can get as long as they get plenty of water as well.

If your lettuce decides to ‘bolt’ and go to flower — they shoot skywards at an astonishing rate — let them and then, once the feathery seed is ripe, harvest it for replanting later in the year.

The herb garden: Keep on sowing those glorious, peppery tasting, nasturtiums, colourful calendulas, sun-loving basil in lots of varieties with lots of different tangs, coriander, dill, arugula/rocket, borage in the shade and deliciously feathery, tall and bushy aniseed for its tasty leaves and equally tasty, highly aromatic seeds.

The fruit department: If you don’t yet have any Chinese gooseberries in your garden, sow some seeds now — easy and rapid to grow, they fruit on and off for months on end and are a delicious treat. Trouble free, they spread and multiply quite fast, so do allow them plenty of room. Before the middle of the month, make what will be this season’s last sowing of watermelon and sweet melon seeds for late summer fruit and, if you are pineapple fans, don’t forget to root the healthy tops of any pineapples you buy so that, in 18 months, or maybe two years, you have pineapples of your very own.

Shrub of the month: Hibiscus is shrubby, long-lived, perennial and enjoys humus-rich growing conditions in full sun. It can be grown directly in the ground or in suitably large pots/containers. Water — on the soil, around the shrub without getting the leaves wet — every other evening in summer and just once a week, if necessary, in winter. Be careful not to overwater and ensure that drainage is good. Flowers may be red, pink, yellow, orange, peach or bi-coloured and can be of single or double formation. It can grow from three to four feet tall, up to approximately 15 feet, depending on local climatic conditions. It is best grown in a sheltered spot, out of direct wind. Propagate from seed or from softwood cuttings taken in late spring.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 3rd, 2020