Monday, March 10, 2008

Hyacinths indoors

This is my first year forcing hyacinths indoors. "L'Innocence" flowers creamy white with a dense sweet scent. Smells like spring!



The individual flowers are distinctly different in shape and scent, but this deep pink plume of "Jan Bos" is reminiscent of a wild orchid.



Many lessons to be learned for next year:

1. Bulbs can indeed be chilled in a paper bag in the refrigerator crisper drawer. (Thank you, May Dreams Gardens!) There's no need to set the bulbs on their water-filled vases inside the refrigerator, unless you enjoy playing with the risk of frozen water cracking the glass vase. Which leads me to my next point . . .

2. You can never have too many vases. Guess that's why Ebay and yard sales were invented.

3. The bulbs will come into flower in their own sweet time. Don't plan for a lovely row blooming in unison on your window sill. At least I matched the vase color . . .



Embrace individuality! Admire the solitary splendor of single bulb!





About one third of the bulbs lingered in an extended state of suspended animation: hovering between water and air, between living and dying. Sometimes a single white thread of a root would suffice to jolt the bulb to life; other times, the fringe of incipient roots on the base of the bulb would mold green. What the heck, those bulbs will be planted in soil-filled clay pots. Plan B for a Class A flower!

1 comment:

Nan said...

Beautiful photographs, and great vases!