VAL BOURNE suggests some colourful indoor bulbs for winter

The best beloved has (or had) a fetish for big bulbs - the bigger and uglier the better. His first acquisition was Urginia maritima, the Sea Squill. But this lost its attraction quickly. For on our next holiday we trudged through thousands of these insipid, white-spired flowers on the shores of a Greek island. They are as common on sun-baked Mediterranean slopes as dandelions are on my lawn.

The next supposed superstar was Velthemia bracteata, a South African bulb with flowers resembling a kniphofia in form. However, flower colour can vary from bright pink to white and our specimen proved to be a wishy-washy, dirty-dishcloth white.

A succession of larger bulbs came and went and, although we always expected them to produce show-stopping flowers, they never quite managed it.

But there is one large bulb that does deliver true flower power - the hippeastrum. Plant one now and you will have a flower spike in about six weeks time as long as it is given a light position in a coolish room where the temperature doesn't drop below 10C.

These tender bulbous plants, bred from a South American species, used to be considered vulgar and rarely made it off steamy kitchen window sills. But the once naff hippeastrum, also known as amaryllis, has gone up in the world. It's now a highly trendy cut flower and stylish florists proffer bright-red hippeastrums for Christmas.

Better still, plant a bulb or two and give them to gardening friends or relatives for Christmas. Garden centres have plenty on offer at reasonable prices.

If time catches up with you, Thompson and Morgan have their own living Christmas catalogue (0844 573 2020) full of winter-flowering plants and bulbs, including several hippeastrums. Christmas Carol' (pictured) is a multi-stemmed, red variety. But there's also a much subtler Butterfly Amaryllis with whispy orange-red flowers.

Or if size matters to you there is a really brash giant with red and white flowers. There is also a mixed trio consisting of dark-red Benefica', orange-red Double Dragon' and a white double called Jewel'.

All big bulbs are planted with the top third, or even half, left showing. This prevents the bulb from rotting. If you are potting your own add some broken crock pots to the base, or broken polystyrene, to aid drainage.

Choose a pot about two inches wider than the bulb and use John Innes number two compost. But if you wish to keep your bulb and grow it year after year you must feed it with liquid fertiliser every ten days after it has flowered.

Regular feeding after flowering keeps the bulb in leaf longer thereby allowing it to store lots of food for next year's flower. Your pot could be placed outside in summer. Ease off the watering as the foliage begins to flag and allow it to go dormant by late autumn.

Wait for the bud to show again and then water and feed. In years to come your hippeastrum will flower in spring. Subsequent repotting takes place in autumn every third year, while the bulb is dormant. Pull off any old roots and use a slightly larger pot.

Waterperry is holding a Christmas craft market on November 24 and 25 from 10am to 4.30 pm. All the items will be made by local craftsmen and women. There are also wreath and decoration demonstrations and entertainment for the children, including Santa Claus for the under-tens. A special Christmas menu will be available at the Pear Tree Teashop. Entry is free.